DeafDigest Mid-Week edition, December 9, 2014
-- a deaf ASL basketball referee in big time college basketball
Lafayette defeated Pennsylvania 83-77 on December 6, 2014 in
Philadelphia. One of the three referees in that game was Chris
Miller, Baltimore, MD. He is deaf and ASL is his first language.
He has been refereeing for almost 20 years and moved up the
ladder, refereeing 3 NCAA-I games 2 years ago, 5 games last season
and 8 games this season. How does he communicate with other
referees and coaches? He uses gestures. What about angry coaches?
He ignores them, knowing he did his best job. And the NCAA boss
of referees supports him. A picture of him in the game is at:
http://deafdigest.com/picture-of-deaf-referee-chris-miller-in-big-time-basketball-game/
-- 911 text problems in a city of 120,000 people
Allentown, PA is a typical medium sized American city. The
Emergency Services people installed a text 911 system early
this year. To date, the emergency people only received about
60 text calls, and about 20 of these calls could be traced.
A flop? Hard to say. The center director feels that people
are not comfortable with new technology and during
emergencies they use a voice person (family members or
neighbors). Also there is a matter of patience. A voice
call takes only 60 seconds for the emergency people to
respond. A text call takes over 10 minutes for the same
thing. Is the center giving it up? No, because of FCC
rules that all centers be able to handle text calls.
-- a deaf man in court had interpreting fees removed
A deaf man was in Pennsylvania court. They told him
interpreters were not free. He said nothing. They gave
him a bill. He paid for court costs but not for
interpreters, telling the court that in Title II of ADA,
interpreters are free. The opposing attorney agreed.
The judge agreed. The NAD praised him. Simple, he said!
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12/07/14 Blue edition at:
http://deafdigest.com/category/newsletter/newsletter-blue-newsletter/
12/07/14 Gold edition at:
http://deafdigest.com/category/newsletter/newsletter-gold-newsletter/
