I love Michelle McAuliffe, better known as MUCK. Not just because she’s my long-lost fake sister*, a cooler, hotter version of me but also because she creates gorgeous, thought-provoking work.  I had the privilege of visiting her studio and viewing Muck’s most recent body of work, When The Horse Is Dead, Get Off, created as a part of her thesis for the MFA program at George Washington University.

Can You Read my ABCs? reminds me of painter Chuck Close’s recent beautifully photographed portraits, although he doesn’t display related works in a grid.

“Lip-reading is difficult.  By not assembling these photographs in alphabetical order, I’m trying to help the audience get a sense of what it is like to be a deaf person, depending on lip-reading for communication,” said Muck.

The photos in this work are overlaid with a film of tissue.  This filmy veil gives the viewer a sense of separation, obscuring the ABCs.  You think you know what you’re looking at but you aren’t quite sure.  You can fill in the blanks because you see the unobstructed parts of the face but the whole face is not fully visible.  Much like lip-reading, where you think you know what they’re talking about and you’re following along, filling in the blanks through context.

Thin Edges is a series of color photographs arranged on a grid, somewhat like the ABCs piece.The piece is composed of halves of different photos being sewn back together with golden thread, some with neat rows, others a tangled magpie’s nest.

“I can’t leave a photograph naked!  I need to add to it,” exclaimed Muck.

These photographs have intense color and are of things objects, settings, and locations that fascinated Muck at some point.  She says, “This is my attempt to preserve a moment, a precise time and place, and the attached memory.”  When asked about the intense, vivid color in the photographs, Muck said, “Color is important to me.  It is my sound.”

As I looked at the wall of photographs, that been cut in half and then sewn back together, I thought about the phenomenon experienced by many deaf people who are from hearing families or in a field where they don’t work with other deaf people. 

“Everyday, I’m always in two places,” said Muck.

Muck’s work captures that feeling of discombulation and is a reflection of how many of us make our way through the world, and in the end, cobble together a world of our own making that isn’t exactly a choice between the deaf community and the hearing world but a co-existence, a meditation of identity and language at the border to make something wholly new and unique—two worlds combined.

Traditional feminist art rejected craft, but this piece incorporates and celebrates traditional craft.  Some critics would call Muck a post-feminist artist but Muck herself resists theory and labels.  “It’s all bullshit,” she says. 

You’ll find that bullshit is a running theme in Muck’s work but the “Bullshit” piece is something you’ll have to find on your own at her opening on Tuesday.

The contrast between perfect and imperfect, destroyed and reassembled, the highbrow and the base is a tension that resonates throughout Muck’s body of work.  This is unexpected tension, and feels like seeing a beautiful innocent little girl with blonde curls bust out screaming profanities, such as in The Exorcist.  You jump back a little, somewhat repulsed, but the scene, idea and images compel you to stay and look a little longer.

*When we were in college, people would often confuse the two of us because we looked so alike. At one point, people thought we were twins. Tragically, that doesn’t really happen anymore. Maybe if I lost some weight…

The show:

Michelle McAuliffe
When The Horse Is Dead, Get Off
MFA Solo Thesis Exhibition
April 1-April 4

Artist’s Reception:
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
5:00pm - 7:00pm

The Dimock Gallery at The George Washington University
(Lisner Auditorium, Lower Lobby)

730 21st Street NW (21st and H Street)
Washington, DC

Gallery Hours:
Monday-Friday 11am-3pm

I did a Google Maps search for “GetGo Gas” in the DC area — and the results weren’t quite what I expected.

Instead of getting a list of GetGo gas stations owned by Giant Eagle (more on that later), I got a politically-laden list of what some people may think are the usual suspects engaged in an on-going program of acquiring gas elsewhere:

1. The White House
2. The Federal Bureau of Investigations
3. Federal News Service
4. Pew Forum on Religion and Public
5. Congressman John Conyers Jr.
6. Washington Post
7. US Executive Mansion
8. Democratic National Committee
9. US Government: Public Affairs
10. Libertarian National Committee

Experimenting with different combinations of these words (”go get gas,” “goget gas”, and “get go gas”) brings up different rankings with different individuals and agencies, including Union Station, National Reform - Marijuana Laws, National Press, Senator Tom Harkin, Republican National Committee, and other innocent (or not so innocent) parties.

And why was I looking for GetGo gas stations? The Giant Eagle chain of grocery stores has an excellent FuelPerks program where, for each $50 of groceries you purchase through your Giant Eagle Advantage card, you save 10 cents on each gallon of gas you purchase at Giant Eagle and GetGo gas stations. After a particularly productive series of shopping sprees, we were able to get gas for something like $1.39 per gallon (down from $3.25 per gallon).

Can’t beat that. Unless another grocery store offers a similar program. Or, better yet, perhaps one of these politically-linked organizations offers a steeper discount? Hmm.

challenge. the word itself makes me think of obstacles, barriers, mountains, literal or figurative. i perceive challenges as a means to self-actualization through introspection. challenges force you to take a look inwards and realize the possibilities within yourself. are you up to the task? are you too ensconced within the friendly confines of security and your familiar environment? the realization of challenges can make you feel ALIVE or weary. accepting challenges can be thrilling…or defeating.

i look at challenges in a way that they do not defeat me. they make me stronger, and each challenge i endure physically, mentally, socially or spiritually brings out a newer self within me, one that i take time to reacquaint with each layer of my soul that is peeled, much in the same way you turn pages within a book, each page brings a newer concept, a step further along on the path…

“Planetwalker” is the story of a man–john francis–who went through the first quarter of his life like many of us, surrounded in the miasma of the world that we call life. on a day in the early ’70s he learns of a massive oil spill in tomales bay, california. this spill and its impact on the surrounding natural environment brings john to the realization that something must be done. shortly thereafter, he decides to stop using motorized transportation completely and rely on walking.

walking is something that is natural for most of us–something that we likely take for granted everyday, especially in an increasingly fast-paced world rife with demands of all sorts. we do not often take time out of our lives, or our days to just be in the moment, to think, to observe the environment around us, and to just…be.

in “Planetwalker” john tells readers about a pilgrimage he took, all on foot–and in silence. john francis walked from california to oregon and back, then from california…to new jersey. on foot, and in complete silence, championing a personal cause for the environment. he decided to suspend two day-to-day conveniences, motorized vehicles and his speech, instead using mime, gestures, written communication, and sign language to communicate with the world around him. it is a pilgrimage that he embarks on, not using motorized transportation for 22 years, and for 17 of those 22 years, he is silent. he also earns a b.a., m.a. and ph.d all the while in silence. there also is mention of gallaudet, and john’s pilgrimage bringing him to kendall green around the time of the 1988 deaf president now movement.

“Planetwalker” shows us that through silence, we notice more. we observe more. we learn more. about ourselves, about people around us, about the environment we find ourselves within. even more poignant is the fact that john walked for 22 years. he gave himself the time to cover a nation on foot, in silence, taking in his own experiences in his own way, for his own belief.

he sparked a national following through the media, various communities that he reached, spent time with, and moved past on his pilgrimage. after 22 years, the pilgrimage continues on a consistently expanding scale, covering north and south america, the caribbean, with goals to continue until it becomes global.

there is much more within the book that i do not want to deprive prospective readers the pleasure of discovering. the book has made me take a look at myself, my life, my environment, and it has made me think: is there a cause, a belief, a raison d’etre–out there, that would drive me to pursue a similar pilgrimage to john’s?

Planetwalk is also a non-profit organization established in 1982, to increase the awareness of our natural resources, mankind’s commercial exploitation of those natural resources–take a look at the site for more information.

the final version of the book will be published by national geographic and released to the public in april 2008.

challenges–for me, since i am deaf, i already live in a silent world. i wonder, could i take on the challenge of not signing? relying instead on gestures, written communication, to connect with the community around me? that would be a challenge, to say the least.

“Planetwalker” has definitely gotten me to stop and think…it shows me that one man, one person, one being, CAN make a difference in the world, one step at a time.

would you be up to the challenge?

The internet can be a powerful force. Just witness the righteous fury that whipped the internet community to search for and identify an teenager who stole an Xbox and Powerbook from Jesse McPherson in Philadelphia.

He blogged about it, and it was picked up on Digg and from there it gained a life of its own. People did research, called his parents (with IP Relay, no less), and helped Jesse track down the miscreant. They even made a wiki page.

Ended up that due to the furor and incessant IMs, emails, and social-media harassment, he returned the Powerbook, although the Xbox is still missing.

Thought for today: What if that poor kid had nothing to do with it like some argue, or even received the goods secondhand? What if, like the story of the soldier throwing the dog off of the cliff, there was more to it than meets the eye (he claims it was already dead…).

To bring this point home to the deaf community: What if your blog about JKF, or their blog about Julie Rems-Smario, or another blog about the latest deaf community demon did more damage than good? Mob “justice” is usually not justice at all. Innuendo, myspace pages, and rumor do not make a case; but they certainly do make nice gossip and feed righteous wrath. But remember its only gossip, for in a world where anyone can write a blog, the burden is on you, the reader, to appropriately filter and make sound judgments about what you read.

Just review DeafRead or Gallynet for your daily dose of righteous wrath, that like McDonalds, goes down delicious but gives you a case of indigestion a couple hours later.

Give me reasoned logic, orderly evidence, and solid justification any day. What’s that? You’ve heard another juicy story? Do tell!

On the first day of Spring Break I fired an M-16 assault rifle.

Motherhood made me do it, but not for the reasons you might think.

You see, this peace-loving, anti-violence mother who won’t permit anything to be killed in the house gave birth to a now grown child who is a gifted marksman. So off we went to the only public indoor shooting range in town - this being my other hometown of Albuquerque, NM, since DC has some rules about gun possession that haven’t changed recently to the best of my knowledge, though they may be about to…

The last time I fired a gun was in 1992, when I was living in the South Fork Valley in Shoshone National Forest, 42 miles from Cody, Wyoming. Most everyone I knew carried a weapon in their vehicle and had a few others stashed at home. Guns and hunting were deeply embedded into the local culture, harkening back to town founder and promoter Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show. Firearms weren’t part of the culture I grew up with, but I figured when in Rome do as the Romans do. So I learned to shoot with a sweet little 9 mm Italian pistol that fit my hand like a newborn baby’s foot.

My son was a toddler when we left Wyoming. Now, it may have been early exposure to guns that lead to his fascination with them later; I’ll never know. But the point of my blog today is not so much to wax poetic about the smell of gunpowder and the bone-jarring feeling of recoil that passes through your body, but something else – the idea of an open future.

As I wrap up my dissertation, which evaluates the question of whether using genetic technology to bear deaf children is morally justifiable, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about open futures, a concept popularized (if that word can be used for a term that appears mostly in peer-reviewed philosophy journals) by the late great philosopher Joel Feinberg.

The idea is this: parents have a moral obligation to provide their children with opportunities that give them as many options as possible for creating fulfilling lives. When parents make decisions that foreclose these options, it can be seen as shirking your duty as a parent. If these decisions deal with something like not ensuring that one’s child has the ability to hear, it can be viewed as bordering on abusive or immoral; at least that is how some scholars have put it.

I’m not going to disclose what conclusions I come to in my dissertation with this issue; I’m told that I have to wait until it is signed, sealed, and delivered before I can make any more comments about it. But that’s okay, since what is really on my mind is this journey of parenthood.

When you give birth to a child – regardless of whether that child is deaf or hearing – you have a set of dreams or expectations about what your life with that child should look like. And, as any parent can tell you, the passage of time does something to those dreams. It is not that the dreams change, but that they collide with the reality of that child who is right there before you.

You may prefer to spend your time walking through the woods and examining bugs on trees and tracking animals, but your child turns out to prefer shopping malls and playing around with art supplies. And if you are attentive to your child, you decide one Saturday morning to go to the art supply store instead of the river trail, or to go to the shooting range instead of hanging out at the funky coffee shop with alternative magazines. And it turns out to open up futures that you never would have imagined for yourself as a parent.

And that’s ok.

Actually, it’s more than ok.

To be sure, there’s a difference between making a decision about your child’s physical make-up and deciding what activities you will first pursue with your child. But perhaps the big issue is not so much what you decide you will to do shape your child, as what you do when it first becomes apparent that your child is not you. At some point, you either recognize that you are different people and you accept it, or you resist your differences every step of the way – kicking and screaming through their childhood as the stage mother or Little League father that everyone tries to avoid.

I’m wondering if the proponents of the open future arguments stop too soon by limiting it to physical characteristics that inhere at birth or shortly thereafter.

Is it that we are morally obligated to provide our children with open futures, defined as making sure as many options as possible are available to our children?

Or ought we to focus on the supererogatory duty of parents to go beyond this — nurturing those interests and passions that our children develop, even when they may be antithetical to our own, but so long as they are not causing harm to themselves or others?

Since I’m writing this midstream through the journey of parenting, I cannot know whether my conclusions now will be the same as whatever I reach when my children are fully formed and out on their own. But I’ve got a hunch they might be.

When your children are young, you pour your ideas about the world and right and wrong and good and bad into their little heads, thinking that you are doing the right thing and your duty as a parent, by doing so. Now that I’ve got one child ready to fledge, I find myself pausing to think about just who in the parent-child relationship benefits most from this broadly constructed notion of open futures.

I’ll give you a hint: I don’t think it’s the child.

Don’t let the location fool you, you can’t find a more causal place in posh Bethesda, MD than Tommy Joe’s. We’re not talking about that cup ‘o joe…get your beer fix and eat all night at this jovial place where the sign at the front may say “proper attire required” which they think means nice jeans and a t-shirt. Tommy Joe’s has this unusual bar area with a faux city landscape painted on the walls, as if they want to remind you that you’re in a tiny hamlet amid skyscrapers.

The DPHH will take place, as it always does, on a Friday… April 4th. We’re not foolin’ ya. Dress down and get yourself uptown to Tommy Joe’s!

Tommy Joe’s
4714 Montgomery Lane
Bethesda, MD 20814

My uncle forwarded me this New York Times article about young John Cave Jr., a deaf student, who wanted to bring his service dog, Simba, to school. There is a cute picture of a Simba, a yellow Labrador, in the article.

To summarize: the Nassau County school said no to the Cave family, “concluding that having a dog in school would provide no instructional benefit to the student, and could pose a health risk to students with severe allergies and create safety issues during fire drills and practice lockdowns.”

The case made its way to the New York Division on Human Rights, where Commissioner Kumiki Gibson “found that students with disabilities were entitled to have a service dog with them in school under state law and ordered the East Meadow district to change its policy immediately.”

Due to the vagaries of state law, this policy hasn’t been put into effect yet because of an appeal to the State Supreme Court, but so far, so good. I’m happy with the Commissioner’s decision. Of course, schools should allow students with disabilities to bring their guide dogs to class. I do not dispute that.

My problem is: why does John Cave need a guide dog in school? His mother, Nancy, points out that he uses cochlear implants and that Simba accompanies “her son almost everywhere, alerting him to sounds he cannot hear, like fire alarms or someone calling his name.”

Millions of deaf children, including me, went to school and survived just fine without guide dogs. Fire alarms are a no-brainer. Everyone in the classroom runs for the door, so follow ‘em. Sure, it’s a little confusing, but so what?

My friend just said, “Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s the right choice.” Exactly.

There are lots of great adaptions John Cave could take advantage of. Teach people to tap on his shoulder if they need his attention. Tell the teacher she can wave her hand. Being deaf means learning those adaption skills and educating others on how to work with deaf people.

Instead, John “outsources” those skills and depends on his service dog. It’s just smacks of a very deaf=disability perspective. When I’m in a class, the last thing I think about is how people will get my attention or what I will do in a fire alarm. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see any vital use for Simba in the classroom. Can someone tell me?

I also can’t help but wonder if John Cave’s real problem are over-protective parents; you will see that the picture in the article shows him wearing a medical bracelet. As my friend said, “I hope to god it doesn’t just say ‘DEAF’ and instead lists some other serious medical condition.”

This situation troubles me. I do understand everyone is entitled to their own choice of accommodations. I know many deaf people and families have hearing dogs at home.

But what kind of humanistic message does having a guide dog in school send to John, his family, his classmates, and the school? Discuss.

Last week was a week of sorts. For one, 6 March marked the five-year anniversary of the passing of my father at just 74 years of age. I was rummaging through some odds and ends in an attempt to mimic absentminded cleaning–I’m sure y’all can relate to moments like that.

So, below are two short stories that I put together some time ago when I was thinking of him:

Dad’s Bag

He carried in his weathered hands supported by lithe, tanned arms speckled with an array of earned scars, bags that were too small to be called bags, too big to be knapsacks, but nevertheless I call them bags for lack of another word.

These bags were the same size as a gentleman’s shaving kit, although encased in the finest, softest leather–perhaps from an Argentinean Brahma that had given its side skin to produce such a bag of creamy texture.

These bags my father carried with the style of a gentleman and the substance of an officer; they had a leathery strap attached to one side, producing a loop through which one could slide his forearm.

Along the top line, railroad tracks meshed, interlocked and only unlocking with the clicking feel of a zipper as a fastener or a looser.

On the port side, there rested two pouches, big enough for a wallet or a pack of Camels; the pouches sighed with exhausted airs each time my father’s thin, cappuccino toned fingers freed their clasps to retrieve a possession.

The two pouches had identical fasteners, their buttontops blending almost imperceptibly, save for their glossy finishes, into the dark hues of the Argentinean Brahma.

The starboard side featured a cragged and oblong verse of intertwined teeth that opened at the pull of a worn zipper whose finer days had shown deep and rich luster amidst a proud shine.

In this pouch, he kept his keys, tablets and sunglasses.

He carried his bag atop his sinewy and muscular forearms, in the style that befit a gentleman, with the substance of a former United States Navy enlisted man.

Dinnertime

Father always came to the kitchen for dinner on his own time. He would park his slim 5′10 frame in the master bedroom after work, freshening up with a shave and his usual dollop of Aramis.

Every time I see or smell Aramis, its unique endearing odor compels me to think of a rolling prairie meadow that lets the wind rustle the long grasses in the waning hours of summer days, coupled with bold arboreal fragrances and laundry detergent; a lingering thought always remains in my mind.

He would sit in front of the mirror, call back to his wife of 20 years, and with a furtive “I’ll be there” in the middle of stretching his chin upwards, shaving off the remnants of Gillette Shaving Cream with his double-insert razor.

Daddy would wink at my reflection in the mirror and tell me to go help my mother get the table set. His olive skin looked radiant on this particular summer evening–I left as he was daubing that Aramis on his cheeks with his slender hands.

Mama and I would sit at the table, all the aromas of her cooking wafting through the air and into my nose–she would sigh with exasperation and eye the wall-mounted grandfather clock, its long hands watching over the pendulum that marked each passing second, bringing the spindly hands closer to the next Roman Numeral.

Just when Mama was about to throw in the towel and tell me to start eating, I would see Daddy come down the hallway, through the kitchen doorway, across the living room and its arch, to the hallway that led to our bedrooms.

I would say, “Daddy’s coming!” and Father would disappear just briefly as he crossed the space on the other side of the living room wall, and reappear with a comically amazed look on his face, begetting childish laughter that left my lips, announcing his arrival, taking in the sights and smells of Mama’s daily feast.

He would come down and sit in his usual space, off to my right, with Mama directly across from him, at my left, and say:

“Wow, what a meal! Let’s see how it tastes!”

—-All in his own time.

Dad–thank you for those memories, for being there, and for being the best father you could be. See you one of these days–I know you’re enjoying the all-you-can-eat Italian buffet laid out up there! Save me a couple pieces of antipasti!

I have been back to the States for a week now. Israel, a 13-day adventure, morphed into a steady line of mental snapshots hanging on a clothesline. Barely a dent in my lifetime and yet, I returned 10,000 times richer in appreciation of my border-free freedom and wide gateway of accessibility.

It has been ten years since I have been to Israel—in 1998, I spent half a year interning at The Institute for the Advancement of Deaf Persons in Israel, also known as Machon. Here’s my self-perceived timeline what has changed in the span of a decade. Pretty incredible, I must say.

Machon:

1998: Staff of nine people. One late-deafened person was employed and was Israel’s first “deaf” social worker. During the time I was a social work intern there, there were many Deaf people involved in a variety of projects but they were not staffed. Only three staff members were fluent in Israeli Sign Language (ISL). I remember enunciating Hebrew words to earn respect from non-ISL users. MA means what. LAMA means why. It’s quite easy to pronounce, actually. Just practice your AHHHH sounds and you get respect, just like that. One of the three ISL users is a CODA. She was my translator for speaking engagements with educators and government officials explaining about programs for the deaf in the States. She founded Israel’s first informal interpreting training program (ITP) at the time I was there. Very few of the clients that used Machon’s services were university or college students. Back then, limited accessibility hindered Deaf Israelis’ attempts to enter higher education. It was also the same time that Gallaudet had an influx of Deaf Israelis studying so they could get a college degree.

2008: Staff of 18 people. Their new, bigger office is on a school property. Half of the staff is deaf. Three of them are social workers, one is a web editor, and the others are instructors and mentors. It is still a speaking environment with a mix of spoken Hebrew and ISL users. Those who are not ISL users are either taking ISL lessons or have expressed desire to learn. The executive director of Machon is my old friend, the CODA translator. She continued with the interpreting training program on the side and this program is now becoming the country’s first fully accredited ITP. She is grooming one Deaf person to be the next director of Machon. For the first time, two Deaf members joined Machon’s board. One of the two is a dear friend of mine who published Israel’s first sign language dictionary in 1992 which was a huge thing at the time. Over time, her advocacy and forward thinking has made Machon what it is today, a stronger and more viable center for advancing the lives of deaf Israelis. Over 330 deaf Israelis are now enrolled in colleges and universities. Future deaf lawyers, doctors, social workers, and writers are being educated. Hebrew is their mother language—to try to study in English is to deny the language they’re already excelled in. While many Israeli citizens (educated hearing and deaf) are naturally bilingual, with intermediate to advance level understanding of English, Hebrew is still the language of the land and of education. American colleges and universities no longer hold high interest for Israelis, deaf and hearing alike.

Interpreters:

1998: No certified interpreters. Most of the working interpreters were CODAs or rare cases of hearing individuals who discovered the wonders of ISL by accident. For any lecture or class, there’d be only one interpreter. As I mentioned earlier, the ITP was still in infancy. Organizations or students had to pay out of their own pockets to cover interpreting costs, if there were such a thing. And often, deaf students worked through college without interpreters, resorting to the band-aid of understanding classmates, carbon-copy notetakers, and front row seats.

2008: The ITP has ballooned into a recognized academic and professional program with promising employment opportunities nationwide. A certifying board is being created. There is a larger pool of interpreters which go beyond the CODA realm. Because there are no interpreting service agencies (blooming entrepreneurs, take note of this!), college deaf students are still responsible for finding their own interpreters. Fortunately, the Israeli government offers limited financial support to cover these expenses. This explains the rise in admitting more deaf students into higher education institutions.

Deaf Culture:

1998: Wide array of shows and events by Deaf clubs and organizations.

2008: A brand new theater/restaurant/café has opened where Deaf-Blind actors perform a series of plays throughout the year, deaf servers wait on their customers, and the restaurant hosts “dining in the dark” experiences with blind waiters. It’s a classy place in bustling Yaffo, the old part of Tel Aviv. The neighborhood provides an artsy and hip vibe for people with different abilities. Young generation of Deaf Israelis participate in Deaf-related sports and events. A Deaf museum in a suburb south of Tel Aviv recently opened, for hearing people to experience for a moment what it is like to be deaf. Hearing people have the opportunity to walk down a path of sensory reversal.

Deaf Clubs:

1998: My first exposure to Israeli Deaf culture was at the Helen Keller Deaf Club (HKDC) in Tel Aviv, perhaps the largest club in Israel. There, I witnessed many Deaf shows, storytelling sessions, and social gatherings. I also met regularly with the late president, Chaim Apter, who was a prominent figure in both the World Organization of Jewish Deaf and the Israeli Deaf community. HKDC also has the world’s only memorial site listing all the names of Deaf Holocaust victims. There were also clubs in Jerusalem, Be’er-Sheva, Haifa, and a few other cities. Deaf clubs were a significant part of my six-month experience—they were environments in where ISL flourished and advocacy in Jewish Deaf causes was loud and proud.

2008: Number of attendances to the deaf clubs has declined tremendously due to technology and changes in social habits. Younger generations now resort to MSN and the Internet to stay in touch. This is strikingly similar to the drop in attendance at Deaf clubs in America.

Communication/Technology:

1998: Fax was the only way to communicate across distances. No one had TTYs. Computers were still too expensive at the time for many Israelis to own.

2008: Almost all Deaf Israelis I knew ten years ago now own computers, cell phones, and fax machines. Cell phones are equipped with videoconferencing capabilities which allow Deaf Israelis make videophone calls wherever they are. It was an odd sight to see someone signing to a cell phone, akin to a hearing person talking into thin air with a Bluetooth hand-free device. MSN is a secondary religion. It is used with great fervor and devotion that’d make our yellow-figure friend pale. There is a lot of use of ooVoo (www.oovoo.com, but it is not yet Mac-compatible) or Skype technology to stay in touch with their friends around the world. SMS or text messaging remains a viable part of communication for deaf and hearing Israelis alike. This technology levels the playing field for everyone.

Employment:

1998: Simply put, the job prospects for Deaf Israelis at this time weren’t very promising. Many with strong abilities and leadership skills often stayed within the Deaf education field such as teaching or with Deaf organizations. Other Deaf Israelis entered menial types of employment such as post office work, janitor-like duties, and so on.

2008: More diverse employment opportunities. There are more deaf social workers, researchers, writers, artists, activists and business people. However, I cannot say if there are any deaf Israeli lawyers, doctors, or scientists yet. The promising increase of deaf Israelis in colleges and universities hopefully will bear highly qualified Deaf professionals in due time.

Deafhood:

1998: Being Israeli Deaf came with its pride and heritage. A.B. Yehoshua, an Israeli author, once said, “It is impossible to be fully Jewish outside the land of Israel.” I can say it is the same for Deaf Israelis. Their pride in being Jewish and being part of Israel landscape resonated powerfully. On the other hand, Deaf families were viewed with sorrow and regret as if they were afflicted with a never-ending series of genetic screw-ups. This was quite a shock for me, coming from a country where fifth-generation Deaf families are like a mystic and envious world to me.

2008: Very similar as it was ten years ago. However, the perception of self-identity has changed. There is pride in being Deaf and being part of the Israeli Deaf resurgence. I met a brilliant gentleman who works as a web editor for Machon and is a columnist and writer for several Israeli newspapers. Also an avid deep sea diver, he once told me, “I received a scholarship from the University of Chicago for advanced studies in mass communications.” I replied, “Oh wow, that’s a highly coveted university…many people would die to get in.” His response? “Where can I go diving in Illinois?” He also added, “And I want to stay in Israel and be part of the advancement of Deaf Israelis.” While my jaw hung open, I understood. After all, he is a proud Zionist (and a fifth generation Israeli which is also a mystic and envious world to me) and a proud deaf individual participating in Deaf Israel’s future.

Ten years later, Israel has made amazing progress. Israel is at the point where differences between Israel and America are disappearing and similarities multiplying. Even so, I’ll be honest here. I am so thankful we have the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID), interpreting agencies to coordinate requests, universities that arrange interpreters and support services for students, a Federal government that hires people with disabilities, non-profit organizations with Deaf executive directors, boards with Deaf chairs, universities which employ Deaf academics, companies and firms with Deaf CEOs, a health-care industry with its pool of Deaf doctors and dentists, and law firms and legal agencies with Deaf lawyers and advocates. The list is endless and I am proud to say so because we fought hard to be where we are today. I see the same fighting spirit among Deaf Israelis and hearing allies.

You might be tempted to think that because I’m from Wisconsin I have no real sense of objectivity when it comes to Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers. But you’d be wrong. To say that Favre is a football god is by no means any type of exaggeration. One of his rocket balls could drive nails through oak—no, through rock—from a hundred yards out. I’ve seen him get slammed into the frozen tundra so hard the impact carved out a miniature canyon. In fact I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him stagger (while entirely unconscious) the last ten steps to the bench after a particularly ugly hit. How he ever made it I’ll never know, but give him a couple of plays to recover and he’d be right back out on the field again. He never missed a start in over two hundred and fifty regular season games. That’s over sixteen years of professional football, of dragging himself out to the huddle no matter what body part got smashed up this time. The guy is my age, for God’s sake—right around thirty-eight—and I shudder daily at the thought of climbing three flights of stairs just to get to my office.

With that in mind, you’d think I could forgive him for retiring.

And I can… I guess. Reluctantly. It’s not easy. You have to understand. Brett Favre is crazy, albeit a different kind of crazy now than he was when he first started. When he was younger he was completely nuts. He’d throw into double and even triple coverage without breaking a sweat. I’ve seen him win games with Hail Mary passes that bounced off of the helmets of the defenders and into the hands of our guys. Feats such as that are how he earned the nickname “The Gunslinger.” Half of the time you couldn’t tell whether a reception was a miraculous accident or simply a case of him getting bored with the ease of throwing directly to the receivers. The other half of the time you didn’t care. You were jumping up and down in living rooms and bars all across Wisconsin with your friends—beer splashing out of the pitchers, nachos flying in all directions—because in the fourth quarter he finally stepped on the gas. I can remember an entire decade in which it seemed that the Pack was always trailing in the last five minutes of the game. But no matter. Ten point leads, twenty point leads… Favre could demolish them all. Five minutes was an eternity to that guy. It was an eternity to you, too, and your lungs. If you had to hold your breath any longer, they’d explode.

The thing I’m going to miss most about Brett Favre is his touchdown victory sprint. In the seconds that follow a score he will literally drop thirty years before your very eyes, and go from being thirty-eight to being eight again. It’s like watching a colt gallop around a corral, only this colt will jubilantly tackle his own receivers in the midst of the excitement. It’s almost more fun to watch him do the touchdown sprint than it is to watch him play.

But so what, you’re probably thinking. All NFL quarterbacks are like that. You don’t understand. It’s different with Favre. It’s different because if you saw the Packers-Raiders game back in December ’03, then you’ve seen the dark mirror of that jubilant energy. You understand what he’s been through.

I remember the game because Favre’s father had just died the day before. Favre was already in California, and decided to stay with his teammates and play the game. He said his dad would have wanted him to. If you read the newspapers the next day you would have seen the cold statistics… final score 41-7 in favor of the Packers. Favre threw for very nearly four hundred yards and four touchdown passes, accumulating a near perfect passer rating by halftime. He completed twenty-two of thirty attempts by the end of the game, squarely hitting twelve different receivers.

But the statistics don’t really do justice to the enormity of what actually happened out there. Favre was devastating in the opening half of that game. His precision, however, came at a price. In a way you could only understand that game if you had been watching Favre for years; the colt, the gunslinger, the football god. Favre in the ‘90s was full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. With every Hail Mary pass he threw, he also threw the heart and the hope of every Wisconsinite watching up in the air along with the ball. He had us praying on a play-by-play basis. We loved him because he forced us to believe not only in him but also in our team and probably even in God again. Even if he was stoppable as a human being, and even often as a flesh and blood quarterback, you knew that no opposing team would ever make him quit trying to win—nothing would crush that resolute gung-ho energy.

In Oakland he was still crazy, but he was a grim sort of crazy. He still threw into double coverage, but this time you didn’t need to pray that he’d connect. And what’s more, you knew it immediately. That night he was unstoppable as a human being and as a flesh and blood quarterback. This is my opinion, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think he could bear to be human just then. His mind was nowhere else but on the ball and where he had to throw it—not on his wife’s battle with breast cancer, not on his recovery from painkiller addiction and a drinking problem, and probably not even on his father. If he let himself think about anything else he would have cracked. Thus he focused all of his enormous energy on becoming the Brett Favre we prayed for every time he threw an interception in dozens of games past: a machine of accuracy.

But as I said, he paid for it. He aged years during that game, and he was never quite the same from there on out. He never got that total focus completely back, and he never got his former wildness completely back. He was just as magical as he ever had been, and he commanded just as much hope and faith in Wisconsin as ever before. He was still “our” gunslinger, just as much as Green Bay has always been “our” team. But somehow, something was different. And it wasn’t long after that game that he began flirting more seriously with the idea of retirement.

I am going to miss Brett Favre. He wasn’t just a football player. He wasn’t just Green Bay’s quarterback. He is beyond legendary. He is beyond even awe.

To me, Brett Favre is football.