Mid-Week edition, May 4, 2011

-- A robber faking his deafness

Wendy Gabriel (male, not female) was arrested in 2008 in New
York, accused of robbery. Since then he has been faking his
deafness, and was able to postpone his court trial 64 times.
Only communication he would use is via paper and pen, refusing
to use his voice and his ears to communicate. He has asked for
permission to represent himself in the court. Fed up, the court
asked a psychologist to testify on his case. The psychologist said
that Wendy does not speak because he does not want to. After this
testimony, the court turned him down and will be assigning an
attorney for him. This has been going on in New York City.

-- A college football star refusing to play pro football

Tejay Johnson, not deaf, is an All-American football player with
Texas Christian University. The NFL teams wanted him. He told
them "do not draft me because I will not play pro football."
Why did he refuse to play pro football? He wants to stay in
school to earn a degree in rehabilitation for the deaf and then
to work with the deaf for the rest of his life.

-- a party scuffle in late fifties between two Important People in
Deaf Community

Sign language finally won acceptance sometime during the seventies.
Before that, it was not fully accepted among hearing professionals that
work with the deaf. A hotel party was going on; a deaf group was
there; a hearing group was also there but they partied separately in
the same room. Somehow a deaf leader bumped into a hearing leader
(himself fluent with ASL, but working for an anti-ASL national
organization). The deaf leader voiced and used ASL to chat with the
hearing leader. All of a sudden, the hearing leader pushed the deaf
leader's hands away. It got the deaf leader angry and he shouted
"do not touch me." When tempers cooled down, the hearing leader
said it was not necessary to sign because he can hear the deaf
leader's voice.

DeafDigest will not name the individuals involved in this scuffle
because they went on to careers at Gallaudet and at NTID and and
with national deaf organizations. and they are rather well known
everywhere! And the anti-ASL organization mentioned above was not
AgBell but a different national organization.

Point is - we have gone a long way since these anti-ASL dark ages!

-- One year waiting list for a hearing exam

We are lucky in USA. Babies are immediately given hearing screening
exams. Even many of these babies go through two exams just to make
sure. Not that so in Galway, Ireland. There is a long waiting list,
as much as a year or two, for these babies to have hearing screening
exams. People in Galway are not too happy about it. One reason is
that the hearing clinic does not have a full time audiologist!

-- Was the pirate deaf?

On September 28, 2010, a group of Somalian pirates hijacked
a merchant ship. After some chase, the Indian navy grabbed these
pirates and placed them in prison, awaiting trial. Forax Jaame,
one of the pirates, told the Indian navy personnel that he was deaf.
The officers did not believe him, and started investigating his
background. Only recently they confronted him and told him he
was faking his deafness. Surprised, this pirate admitted he was
hearing.