Discrimination Common For The Disabled

by Julia Metraux Mother Jones    After becoming blind in his late 20s, designer and artist Marco Salsiccia had to learn to navigate the world through assistive technology—like a screen reader, software that speaks digital text and image descriptions aloud.    Leveraging that experience, Salsiccia began work as an accessibility specialist, eventually working part-time at a well-known …

A Moment With Mom And Sweet Victory

by Kevin Burton    My mother doesn’t know anything about fantasy football, but she knows a lot about perseverance.    Both truths were evident Monday night.    I was watching Monday Night Football when she called, and she was still on the line with me when the game ended.    To set the scene:    …

Robot Cane Device For The Blind Being Tested

by Kevin Burton    Researchers are testing what they believe will be a revolutionary robotic mobility device for the blind.    This is not your father’s cane. The device, called “Glide,” was demonstrated Saturday at the sixth annual Robot Block Party, a celebration of robotics, held in Boston.    “The device incorporates robotics, sensors, and …

Going Willy Nilly Into Rhyming Words

by Kevin Burton   Who doesn’t love a good rhyme?    We’re serving up a full platter of them today with rhyming words, courtesy of our friends at Merriam-Webster. They are called reduplicative words. Some are hyphenated, some are compound words, some separated into two words. But they are all fun. Hocus-Pocus: nonsense or sham …

Disneyland Cats Are Always On The Job

by Caroline Brigagao insidethemagic.com    It’s no news that Disney Parks hide some special park features in plain sight, like the hidden suite in Cinderella Castle, Walt Disney’s apartment at Magic Kingdom in Disneyland Park, and the private members-only Club 33, also located in Disneyland Park.    However, Disneyland Resort in California focuses a lot of its attention on a “secret attraction” in …

Laugh Makers, Head Shakers And The Big Fear

by Kevin Burton    I am passing this list of probably true-life anecdotes for the sake of humor – I think.    I got it of from a fellow alum of the Ohio State School for the Blind. There was no attribution so I am not sure who compiled them. These short notes have me …

It’s Black Coffee Or No Coffee At All

by Kevin Burton    Let’s get a few things straight right up front. We’re all friends here, yes?    The various sugars, sugar substitutes, creams, potions, spices, flavors, elixirs – chief among them pumpkin of any kind – these things that otherwise upstanding people put into coffee, these things individually and collectively are an abomination. …

48 Hours The Movie, Starring Our New Cat

by Kevin Burton    This is a happy cat story – thank God.    I wasn’t so happy around mid-day yesterday though.    Sunday after church we ran a special errand,  to pick up Lakin, our new 6-year-old cat. The cat rescue place told us Saturday that she had just had her shots and we …

Common Words Borrowed From Arabic

by Kevin Burton     Have there been more impassioned articles written about the evil of alcohol or the evil of algebra?    Who can tell really? But these twin menaces are linked in today’s word list from Merriam-Webster, words borrowed by English from Arabic: Algebra    Anyone who has unpleasant memories of slogging through this …

The Bible Speaks Of Faith In Every Sense

by Kevin Burton    As a legally blind man my mind never gets too far from vision as the five sense in general.    That is partly because people often assume and talk about hearing being more acute for blind people than for others. That’s not true. It’s just that blind people rely on hearing …