DeafDigest Mid-Week edition, December December 21, 2011
-- Deaf man arrested by police for telling them he is deaf!
Shaun Phuprate, a deaf British man, was stopped by the police
because of a minor street incident. As he could not understand
what the police was saying, he pointed to his ear to explain
his deafness. The police thought this gesture was a dirty
word, and they arrested him! Luckily for him, the angry judge
quickly threw the case out of the court.
-- Knowing nothing about Deaf Devices!
A deaf woman recently moved to a Senior hearing Retirement Home.
She made friends with a few late-deafened residents. She found out
that they never heard of closed captions on TV, of alerting
devices and captioned telephones. She then gave demonstrations
of these deaf devices and they were surprised!
-- The Deaf Pizza in San Francisco
Mozzeria is a new pizza restaurant in San Francisco, owned by Russell
and Melody Stein, both of them deaf and Gallaudet graduates. There
was no grand opening ceremony, but instead, two special fund raising
events took place. One was for California School for the Deaf at Fremont
and for the Deafhood Foundation. The other event was to raise funds for
the school that Stein's children attend. On opening day, the restaurant
was booked solid. A Deaf Writer/Food Critic was in attendance. He said
everything was great - food, pizza dough, pizza ingredients, open dining
space, wood burning stove, a full menu, reasonable price, wide selection
of local beer and wine, atmosphere, walk-in location, etc.
-- Hollywood is fighting us!
FCC has given Hollywood 6 months to put captions on everything -
movies, TV and videos. The Motion Picture Association of America
is telling FCC that 6 months is impossible and have asked for about
8 years to complete this captioning project. Six months by FCC or 8
years by Hollywood! Who is right - FCC or Hollywood?
-- UPS punished for discriminating against the deaf
The UPS has agreed to pay $95,000 to Mauricio Centeno, a past
deaf UPS employee who filed a discrimination lawsuit. He asked
for an interpreter in staff meetings and UPS said no, and he
sued. UPS has to pay up $95,000 and also must provide interpreters
at all staff meetings for all of its deaf employees. Remember few
years ago, UPS was in a lawsuit for not allowing deaf employees
to drive trucks.
