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Monday, January 17, 2011

No News Is Not Good News

Hello. How are you doing today? Did you enjoy your morning
news? Perhaps you read the paper while drinking a cup of coffee.
Or maybe you like to watch the Today show or Good Morning
America. Or are you more into CNN? Did you turn on the
weather channel this morning to check up on this harsh winter
weather?

Now I want you to think what it's like - what it's REALLY like -
to be deaf-blind and have no access to news. No access. That
means no newspaper, no TV, no radio, no internet access... A
complete and utter shut out.

Because of my arm pain, I have been unable to access news using
my assistive technology. The Braille Note doesn't handle the
web well, anyway. I never was able to use their internet
program to access news. I still don't have training to use my
computer. However, there is an email list for sharing and
posting news in an easy to access format. It's a great group. I
should know because I'm the list owner.

Sadly, I couldn't keep up with messages. The pain was too much.
I had to limit my reading time to just a few hours a day. Just
for school related work. I had to leave all my email groups,
including the news list.

I've been cut off from news for the last four months. I don't
have a clue what is happening in the world. There could be wars
and shoots and floods and terrorist attacks and I wouldn't know
anything about it. The weather? I find out what the weather is
like when I step outside the front door.

It's hard to rely on others for this kind of information. I ask
my mother if there's anything happening in the news. She says,
"not really." I ask her about the weather. She says, "I don't
know."

My mother obsessively reads every word of two newspapers
everyday. She's always got CNN or the Weather channel on TV.
She even listens to a police scanner. But all I can get out of
her is "not really" and "I don't know."

Think about today's news. Think about what you've read and heard
today. Is there really nothing going on?

I just peeked at the messages being posted on my news list. I
forgot that today was Martin Luther King Day. What shooting in
Arizona? Why was someone trying to kill a member of congress?
Golden Globe winners - what Facebooks movie? I didn't know there
was a movie about Facebooks. Maine's new governor told the NAACP
to "Kiss My Butt." I didn't know there was a new governor and
why would he say that?

Do you get my point now? Do you understand what no news really
means? Can you imagine how shut out this makes a person feel.
It increases that horrible sensation of being alone and isolated.
To know nothing about the world outside your own home.... This is
another sad example of the reality of being deaf-blind.

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