DeafDigest Mid-Week edition, March 27, 2013
-- a deaf finger built from bicycle parts!
Few deaf people have lost fingers because of accidents.
It often is a problem while trying to fingerspell or to
sign some gestures. Colin Macduff, not deaf, has an
amputated finger. He could not get a prosthetic finger.
Frustrated, he got creative and built his own prosthetic
finger from bicycle parts! Thrilled, he started a business,
creating prosthetic fingers. A finger costs $5,500 and a
thumb costs $9,500. His prices are lower than otherprosthetic
manufacturers. He would be happy to help a deaf patient
that needs a new finger.
-- a faked hearing exam
New Zealand requires newly born babies to be tested for hearing.
A scandal came up when the government Ministry of Health
learned that about 10 of the nation's 110 hearing screeners
were not honest with the exams. They would sign papers, saying
the baby is hearing without testing them. The angry government
fired these screeners. One baby, signed off as hearing, was
deaf, and the parents didn't know about it until a year and half
later! Other babies were lucky; they were hearing without being
tested.
-- Sean Forbes' new musical album - is it making him a rich man?
We have several deaf rockers in the world of music. A better
known deaf rocker is Sean Forbes. He is working on his first
musical album. Do albums make rockers wealthy? For a few rockers,
yes, but for many rockers, no. Many things are expensive
(studio time, engineering, payroll costs, art work, etc, etc).
If a rocker sells 10,000 albums, he is "successful" - just hope
Forbes will sell more than 10,000 albums. The late Michael
Jackson was rumored to have sold nearly 500,000,000 albums!
-- March 30th is very important day for all of us
As of March 30th all captioned programs on TV must
be captioned if it is shown again on the internet.
The FCC asks you to file a complaint if you do
not see captions on the video of the same captioned
program that was shown on TV.
-- Nebraska cuts back on relay funds for good reason!
the Nebraska Public Service Commission will charge telephone
users 3 cents per month, instead of 4 cents per month. This
one cent drop means $240,000 less to fund the free TTY
distribution program and for the deaf relay services. Bad
news for the deaf in Nebraska? No! Too much past money was
collected, exceeding the state limit. This is the reason for the
one cent reduction. Nebraska, by the way, may be the only state
in USA that has surcharge on BOTH the regular telephones and
on cell phones!
03/24/13 Blue edition at:
http://35.182.75.222/category/newsletter/newsletter-blue-newsletter/
03/24/13 Gold edition at:
http://35.182.75.222/category/newsletter/newsletter-gold-newsletter/
