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From: rudy@mtqua.att.com (Rudy Vener)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: More Thoughts!
Message-ID: <17084@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 91 21:28:35 GMT
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Reply-To: rudy@mtqua.att.com (Rudy Vener)
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Index Number: 13095

Hi Mitch,
 Nice to see you here!  It's been ages.  How've you been?
 
>
  [ some stuff deleted ]
>drive you crazy to realize that the coping strategies that help other HI 
>people won't work for me any more, cuz I don't have the vision. And vice versa-
>-the ways in which hearing helps most blind people don't work for those of us 
>who also have hearing impairments. 
>
   And how!  Such as crossing busy streets.  I still have SOME useful vision
and SOME hearing.  Problem is the hearing is not directional, the vision is
(let us say) unreliable.  I really hate those nasty little cards with the
quiet engines that can make snappy right hand turns faster than you can
say 'run over the blink'.  One interesting thing I found out is that I feel
much more secure crossing in the MIDDLE of the block because a) I usually
cannot spot the traffic light anyway and b) I only have to check two directions
instead of four.   
  
>Quite a challenge. I thank God I wasn't born a few hundred years ago, before 
>hearing aids, flexible canes and infrared/ultraviolet blocking lenses, and 
>computers! Wow, I'd probably been in some kind of institution, if not just 
>plain dead!!!
>'nuff said
    Same here.   The recent events in the Persian Gulf have given me some
cause for reflection and I have come to the (rather obvious) conclusion that
handicapped people can only thrive during times of great peace and prosperity.
Let's face it, accomodating handicapped individuals is a LUXURY that only a
fairly wealthy society can afford.  Let's not kid ourselves that we have some
sort of inalienable RiGHT to equal access and special accomodations.  We may 
have these rights NOW but they are far from inalienable and they could disappear
at the first major, world threatening catastrophe.
   How did I get off on this subject anyway?  I better stop before everyone 
falls asleep.

Rudy Vener  AT&T BTL ...!att!mtqua!rudy