Informed Decisions, Parents Know Best, and Other Mythical Creatures (I of III)
Over the last couple of days I’ve been closely following various blogs written on the protest at the A.G. Bell conference a few days ago. Over and over I saw these types of comments being made: “It’s the parents’ choice in the end. So long as parents are making informed choices, and getting all of [...]
Rick and the Pump Soap–My Journey into Obsessive-Compulsive Roommate Hell
Now Rick* was a man who liked his pump soap positioned precisely. Don’t get me wrong, here. I believe that when two men are roommates, there should be certain boundaries in place. Without boundaries, you’re setting yourself up for the type of confusion Joey and Chandler (yes, the guys from Friends) had to work through: [...]
Linguistic Adventures in Mexico!
Ah, Mexico. Land of pristine beaches; of gentle guitar music strummed softly in the background while you sip your margarita. Land of linguistic nightmares. The year was 1994. The Willem Dafoe paraplegic drinking scene in Born on the Fourth of July was still fresh in my mind. Thus when I asked my friend Mary* if [...]
The Deaf Are Insular… Just Like Everyone Else
After getting into an argument last week with someone who believes that ASL-using, culturally Deaf people are “insular,” I took the time to look the word up. I had always assumed it just meant “insulated” or “closed.” But when you know you’ll probably be having the same argument again in the near future, it’s a [...]
The Price of Erasing the Writing on the Wall
About a week ago I received an email from a friend of mine who works at UW-Milwaukee. She said that she liked my recent blog on conflict resolution, and felt bad that the whole thing happened in the first place. But she also felt somewhat wary, because after the blog was posted, a few prospective [...]
Directing People to Indecipherable Gibberish: Dilemmas in Lip Reading Lost Motorists
A curious socio-biological phenomenon: As a deaf man I apparently don’t know how to get anywhere in a town that I’ve lived in for eight years. Now this isn’t as strictly true as it first might appear. I can draw you a pretty decent map to everything within two or three miles of my house, [...]
Four Steps Beyond Putting Your Foot Down–Conflict Resolution Made Easy
There’s a lot of discussion going on these days about conflict resolution… what it is, what it means, and how it should be approached. I think this type of discussion is good and I’d like to contribute my own little story. The following happened to me when I was an undergrad at UW-Milwaukee: I had [...]
She Drips Malice
Okay. In the past, dear readers, I’ve written about my Metro travels. But alas, due to a job change a year ago, I don’t take the Metro anymore. Instead, I drive my trusty Hyundai Elantra to and from work at Gallaudet. Initially I decried my own descent into commuterhood but the mere 5 minute drive [...]
Overcoming Crab Theory
For those of you who don’t know this, Crab Theory is a theory that the Deaf community uses to explain why so many successful D/deaf people are so often viciously criticized or “pulled down” by other, presumably less successful D/deaf persons. The phenomenon has supposedly been observed in crabs that have been placed in a [...]
What’s a Leader to a Cynic?
While you can’t be a leader if you don’t have followers, logically the reverse should be true, as well. Thus with all the talk of “leadership” currently going on in our community, I thought I’d pull a quick bait-n-switch, here, and write instead on what makes good followers. Below is my list of Top Five [...]