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Post by bjobsessed on Mar 23, 2008 14:22:27 GMT -5
Anita: Me! Me! Me! of course. You have my address. Later, Carl I never would have guessed! I still have your address unless you've moved. Drop me a pm and let me know how you're doing. Love to hear from you. I'll be sure to mail you one--and not just on the envelope! ;D |
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Post by carl1951 on Mar 23, 2008 14:40:44 GMT -5
Already done.
Later, Carl
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Post by doobrah on May 13, 2008 8:17:42 GMT -5
More "war" ramifications:
BLINDNESS TURNING UP IN WAR VETS IS CAUSED BY EXPLOSIONS NEARBY
05/11/-08 - By The Orlando Sentinel
ORLANDO, Fla. — Sgt. David Kinney realized he had a problem when he struggled to read the e-mails his wife sent him in Afghanistan.
He suffered headaches, and his vision grew steadily worse. Before long, the military shipped him home to DeLand, Fla. Now he's considered legally blind.
"I didn't get blown up or knocked out, or have a big piece of my head missing like some of these guys," said Kinney, who served in Orlando's 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment of the Florida National Guard. "You didn't see it coming."
Kinney, 46, is among an increasing number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans losing their eyesight not because of bullet or bomb wounds but in what doctors suspect is a delayed reaction to the constant pounding of nearby explosives.
His eyes aren't the problem. His brain is.
Studies conducted by the military have estimated that up to 20 percent of the 1.7 million troops who have served and returned from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from mild traumatic brain injury, most often as a result of roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
Bill Wilson, a blindness-rehabilitation specialist at the Orlando VA Medical Center, sees a coming wave of woe.
"We won't know for months," he said. "We can see the individuals and they may be perfectly fine, and then down the line they have problems." No one knows how many of the veterans may eventually be blind or have to deal with other vision problems, but research suggests there could be thousands.
The military is just beginning to study the problem, said Gregory Goodrich, supervisory research psychologist and coordinator of the optometry-research fellowship at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Palo Alto (Calif.) Healthcare System. Preliminary results from a pilot study suggested that as many as 70 percent of severely wounded soldiers treated for traumatic brain injuries also complain of double vision, difficulties in reading, blindness and other vision problems.
At first Kinney's doctors thought he'd had a stroke. Later, he learned he had suffered mild Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI, and an Orlando neurologist eventually blamed his condition on exposure to bombs.
In Afghanistan, part of Kinney's job had been to help blow up old Soviet munitions. He earlier had served in Iraq, where he often felt the concussive effects of roadside bombs.
"It was like riding around in a car with kids and their boomboxes," Kinney said of his time in Iraq. "It's a constant boom-boom-boom. It would shake the ground, crack windows and knock plaster off the wall."
Experts say brain injuries such as Kinney's are often difficult to detect. Even more challenging is making the connection between TBI and blindness. It's so early in the research that's there been little success in developing cures or treatments.
"Even if the eyes are working perfectly, brain injuries can lead to blindness," said Glenn Cockerham, chief of ophthalmology at the VA Palo Alto.
Certain parts of the brain, such as the occipital lobe, the region of the brain that controls vision, can take a pounding from blast shock waves. Kinney suffered occipital-lobe damage.
Preliminary research in a small study by Cockerham found 26 percent of soldiers injured in blasts had severe visual impairment, including blindness.
Kinney said the blasts he survived were "nothing special. We knew when explosions went off, we were being protected," he said of his body armor.
But the armor, even though it included a helmet, didn't protect the vision center of his brain.
"I volunteered for the Army, I volunteered for the mission, I know what happens and I know what decisions I made," he said. "I'm not bitter."
Still, he finds his condition "aggravating." For a soldier-husband used to providing and protecting, it has meant tension-filled moments with his wife, Antonia, 43.
"Something falls, and I'll try to pick it up and plow right into her," he said. His wife says she has taken over more of the job of keeping the household.
The military is gearing up to offer more help to Kinney and other soldiers losing their sight.
This year, the Veterans Health Administration is spending $40 million to add 55 outpatient vision-rehabilitation clinics nationwide and to increase staff at existing facilities, said James Orcutt, national program director of ophthalmology for the VA.
Kinney will spend four to six weeks at the Southeastern Blind Rehabilitation Center in Birmingham, Ala. There he'll learn how to live with his blindness, building upon what he's using at home.
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Post by doobrah on May 20, 2008 12:04:28 GMT -5
From the Washington Post:
Court Rules That Paper Money Discriminates Against the Blind
By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
A federal appeals court today upheld a lower ruling that the U.S. currency system discriminates against blind people because bills of different denominations are the same size, shape and color and cannot be easily distinguished by the visually impaired.
In a 2-1 ruling issued this morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said the existing currency system violates the federal Rehabilitation Act and ruled that the Treasury Department must find a way to accommodate the needs of the visually impaired.
In finding for the American Council of the Blind, which first brought its lawsuit in 2002, the court said Treasury did not prove that changing the currency system would constitute an undue burden for the federal government. Instead, the court found that altering the size or shape of bills would not cost substantially more than other changes the government has made to bills in order to deter counterfeiting.
In addition, the appeals court said, the government could have avoided some of the cost of changing its currency if it had included accommodations for the visually impaired while adding anti-counterfeiting measures in 1996 and 2004.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. told the appeals court that the blind can function adequately within today's currency system by using credit cards or electronic scanners that identify bills of differing amounts, and by relying on assistance from others. But the majority opinion written by Judge Judith W. Rogers sharply disputed that view.
"The Secretary's argument is analogous to contending that merely because the mobility impaired may be able either to rely on the assistance of strangers or to crawl on all fours in navigating architectural obstacles . . . they are not denied meaningful access to public buildings," Rogers wrote.
In the original lawsuit, visually impaired citizens testified about having to rely on others to tell them if they were receiving correct change or to alert them if they proffered the wrong bill while conducting financial transactions.
"The Council has demonstrated both the denial of meaningful access and the availability of facially reasonable accommodations that are feasible and efficacious," Rogers wrote. "[T]he Secretary has not demonstrated that implementation of every such accommodation would involve an undue burden."
Judge Thomas B. Griffith concurred with Rogers in upholding the 2006 decision by U.S. District Judge James Robertson, while Judge A. Raymond Randolph dissented. Randolph wrote that because the District Court had not ordered a specific remedy when it ruled for the plaintiffs, it was impossible for the appeals court to determine whether whatever remedy was ultimately considered would pose an undue burden to the government.
In his 2006 ruling, Robertson ruled that the government must make changes to its bills, but left it up to the government to decide what changes would be made. He also said that of more than 170 countries that print paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color regardless of denomination.
Today's appeals court ruling upheld Robertson's ruling and sent the case back to district court to consider the plaintiff's request for injunctive relief.
The federal government must now decide whether to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
The Council of the Blind has suggested distinguishing bills of different amounts by changing their size, adding embossed dots or foil to the paper or using raised ink.
The government has said such changes would be costly--from a minimum of $4.5 million to dramatically increase the size of numerals on bills so they could be read by those with poor vision, to more than $200 million to create different-sized bills -- and could interfere with anti-counterfeiting efforts. But the appeals panel noted that the cost estimates included applying the changes to all bills, while advocates say that the $1 bill, which accounts for nearly half of all currency printed each year, would not have to change.
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Post by inuvik on May 20, 2008 15:18:57 GMT -5
'bout time something was done--Canada has had braille money for a long long time. And now we even have a braille stamp issue!
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Post by Colorado girl on May 27, 2008 17:35:46 GMT -5
I found this clip on yahoo news about a blind boxer in Uganda. SEE, not so far fetched after all, right Mary? www.yahoo.com/s/888900 |
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Post by bjobsessed on May 27, 2008 20:24:25 GMT -5
It will be interesting to see what happens in the end.
I forgot about the stamp. I'll have to go find one.
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Post by mlm828 on Jun 29, 2008 14:47:53 GMT -5
Today's paper had this article about the lawyer who brought the suit to make U.S. money accessible to the blind, and the person who inspired him to do it. |
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Post by bjobsessed on Jun 29, 2008 15:00:09 GMT -5
That's quite a touching story! Hopefully, his fight will get results someday.
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Post by adl30uk on Aug 22, 2008 9:59:20 GMT -5
Sorry for being a lurker but i've been busy with work, my jobs had me up and down the country for the past few months so i've only had time to lurk and not post. Saw this on yahoo news and thought i just HAD to post it.... Blind Frenchman fined for drunk driving NANCY, France (AFP) - A blind journalist was given a month's suspended jail sentence and fined 500 euros (750 dollars) by a French court Friday for driving while drunk and without a license. The owner of the car, who was also drunk as he sat next to the blind man when he drove the vehicle, was given the same sentence and had his license suspended for five months by the court in the northeastern town of Nancy. The pair were arrested on a country road in the early hours of July 25 by police who spotted their car zig-zagging suspiciously and moving at a very low speed. The police were astounded when the 29-year-old driver informed them that he was blind, and when they breathalysed him and his passenger, a 52-year-old photographer, they found they had drunk twice the permitted level of alcohol. "I really wanted to do it (drive the car)," the blind man told the court. "I expressed this wish. He (the owner of the car) agreed." The owner said he saw "a lot of happiness emanating from him" as he drove, adding that he had "one hand on the handbrake and one hand on the steering wheel" as the blind journalist drove. "I was very concentrated on the road," he said. The judge retorted that, as he was well over the legal alcohol limit, "that didn't make you a vey reliable monitor." The blind journalist had previously driven on a closed circuit, an experience which he had recounted in a regional newspaper in an article which was accompanied by his photographer friend who was in court with him Friday. Or this is the link if you want to check it out.... uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080822/tod-france-transport-offbeat-7f81b96.html |
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Post by inuvik on Aug 22, 2008 13:07:28 GMT -5
OMG. Now I have heard everything!
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Post by inuvik on Nov 2, 2008 14:19:16 GMT -5
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Post by bjobsessed on Nov 2, 2008 16:07:17 GMT -5
That's quite interesting. Of course I have no problem with the blind doing the job but at the same time, people should be able to choose their profession as well as whether or not they want to 'avoid embarrassment.'
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Post by Dreamfire on Nov 2, 2008 18:15:05 GMT -5
How Bizzare!
Attitudes and stuck ideas like this are easy to see from outside the culture but from inside they seem logical. In, I'm not sure if it is Tibet or Nepal, but in one of those high countries they think blindness is a punishment for being evil.
Funny how they think it is the "only" occupation a blind person could have.
Perhaps Jimmy should take a course....
Anyone willing to line up for his apprenticship in massage?
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Post by Chris on Nov 4, 2008 18:19:15 GMT -5
How Bizzare! Attitudes and stuck ideas like this are easy to see from outside the culture but from inside they seem logical. In, I'm not sure if it is Tibet or Nepal, but in one of those high countries they think blindness is a punishment for being evil. Funny how they think it is the "only" occupation a blind person could have. Perhaps Jimmy should take a course.... Anyone willing to line up for his apprenticship in massage? OK, OK, if no one else is willing, I'll do it. It'll be my sacrifice to this board ;D Seriously, you're right, Ash, it seems bizarre, but it probably makes sense from their point of view. - Chris  |
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