Here’s To Life In The Age Of Invisibility

by Kevin Burton    The same little girl said a sunshiny “hi” to me twice in the grocery store Tuesday. This was astounding to me, since I am invisible.    You make your circuits in a smallish store and you may cross paths with the same people multiple times.    I gave the girl the …

ADA Enforcement Is Tough Sledding

by Kevin Burton    I let the 33rd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act pass July 26 without writing anything about it. Why?    It was partly because I ran out of time, as I was preparing to travel to the Beep Baseball World Seies in Oklahoma.    But it was mostly because I …

Ten Brilliant Facts About Braille

by Kelli Finger (from Mental Floss website)    Braille is a tactile system that blind people use to learn to read and write, invented in 1824 by a blind French educator named Louis Braille.     He revolutionized an existing writing and reading system that allowed blind people to enjoy books  and communication. I certainly don’t know …

A Writer Chronicles His Loss Of Vision

by Robert Ito New York Times    In 2019, Andrew Leland began writing a book about blindness, even as he was going steadily blind himself.    Working as his vision deteriorated gave him an insider’s perspective — who better to write about the blind than the blind? — but, as he learned, also made writing …

Mom’s Birthday ‘Celebration’ In The Hospital

by Kevin Burton    My mother spent her 89th birthday last month in a hospital ER room.  Yeah, she really knows how to celebrate.    I had a post about her 89th birthday 89 percent finished. That was about a month ago.  Had to scrap it.    On her birthday she fell. It was her …

Blind People Struggling in War-Torn Ukraine

by Hanna Arhirova Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Sunlight filters through shattered windows, casting a glow upon the dusty furniture and fragments of glass strewn across the floor of the office belonging to Oleksandr Vinkovskyi, director of a Kyiv business where visually impaired people worked.    Vinkovskyi is blind, and can’t see the scale of …

P&O Cruises Humiliates Blind Passengers

by Kevin Burton    For blind people, being a second-class citizen would represent an upgrade. The following provides another example that proves, when it comes down to it, blind people aren’t treated as citizens at all.   This story was widely reported. My information comes from Insider.    “Two blind passengers who were ordered to …

Feeding Body, Mind And Spirit On The Road

by Kevin Burton    Got an unexpected comfort on the road last week that filled the stomach and the heart.    There isn’t much I don’t like about being on the road. I can see why so many people have written so many love songs to the road and the road life.    I’ve spent …

Seeking An SOS From Beepball And ABBA

by Kevin Burton    Eureka I say, eureka! I have my beep baseball problems figured out.    In athletics they say, father time is undefeated, and that’s true. But all I need is a great idea, and an SOS, from ABBA.    This is truly exciting!    You’ve probably heard about ABBA Voyage, a virtual …

Blind Women Helping Detect Breast Cancer

   In a bare room in a remote government-run primary health center in Vapi, a city in the south-west Indian state of Gujarat, Meenakshi Gupta holds a diagram of a woman’s breast with five Braille-marked orientation tapes pasted on it. Speaking to the woman sitting on the bed, she says: “I’ll paste these skin-friendly tapes on your …