Inscrutable !

Scientists in Japan have created a smoke detector for deaf people which warns them with the smell of wasabi. Boffins from Shiga University of Medical Science say they needed to come up with a way of waking deaf people if they were asleep.

The problem was that 50 percent of fire victims in Japan are elderly and often have poor hearing - meaning ringing alarms don't wake them. Professor Makoto Imai's design uses a synthesised version of wasabi which is sprayed into the air created the pungent odour. This is said to wake most sleeping people within two and a half minutes… and give them a uncontrollable craving for sushi.

Ref:

The British demanded one that smells like fish and chips, the Americans wanted one that smells like Big Macs..... Mexico wanted the chilli con carne....

Deaf woman not told she was dying of cancer

David Nelson got the bad news about his wife in December 2005. He just didn't know it.

For three months, the Nelsons met with doctors at North Memorial Medical Center, but they weren't aware Mary Ann was dying of cancer. In fact, they thought she was doing well enough in her battle with the disease that she could go to her retirement party. So they were stunned in March 2006 when her oncologist abruptly put an end to their hopes -- and their request -- with a terse note saying, "We can't cure the cancer!"

It was the first time the Nelsons, both deaf, understood the cancer was terminal, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Mary Ann Nelson died in May 2006.

In Detail...

Why Deaf relay services ?

Should deaf people be refusing to support text-deaf relay services, on the grounds they are entitled to use the telephone direct the same as other people ? given deaf relay services take longer and cost us more too, are deaf allowing others to exploit our deafness ? and does this prevent telephone operators making their systems totally deaf accessible ? Can readers take part in a small survey ? I haven't used my Minicom in 10 years, is there any point now ? Should the Brits dump Typetalk for good ?

We haf ways of Identifying charity...

Kudos to Fintan for this, brilliant...

Dear Diary..

(Excerpts from a blog diary of abuse on a deaf family).

It seems that the law is against getting things done isn't it ? I'm not one for meetings anymore, I did years of it, and know they are impotent and pointless options
anyway. I am encouraged some judges now support our right to defend ourselves, however we are told this is exceptional still, and if you have more cheeks than two to use them all, and offer an arm and leg too.

Near everyone deaf can tell a story of community abuse, and the futility of pushing for it to be addressed. I try a simplistic approach, IF a law exists for hate-crime and abuse then (A) Why are no cases brought, and (B) No actions taken except the abused has to concede defeat ? By the time we deaf are at our wits end, we are only too glad to take up the offers of rehousing that's the problem, we still need police and 'community leaders' (who the hell they are I don't know), to act IMMEDIATELY to put a stop to it, but no-one cares as long as it isn't them,a nd think we hail from Neptune anyway.

3 cases well documented in my area and covered in recent blogs, and in local media, but not one resulted in any abuser being caught or taken to court. The only empathetic support I had was from a Hindu neighbour, poor sod had his share I suppose.

The amount of complaints the LA's got was considerable from us deaf, then we were suggested as 'over reacting' or even moaners not attempting to get on with people, can we tone the rhetoric down a bit, it doesn't help. You'd get local kids walking straight into your home or garden and trying to walk out with things (!!?), the overall view being deaf are completely stupid and ignorant, and they don't care if you hurt or steal from them, we're all retards.... We had a patio set costing £150 stolen in 2 days, a car just bought, which had side windows smashed in 3. The only car in the street and not on the road in our drive too. The patio set was stolen by our neighbours, who also climbed up our wall and destroyed the CCTV installed on police recommendation, after their kids tried to sever a gas pipe outside, and turn off the mains electricity for fun. I found a number of local children needing psychiatric help.

They had no idea how to relate to people at all, completely feral and in designer clothing too. We had a 5 yr old sent to us (A girl), egged on by a few 10 yr olds who told her "Go and kick that deaf man, he won't do anything..." Indeed we won't of course, as this means the sex offenders register, and potential family destroyed if we react. The power children have is immense. These little humiliations build up and make deaf very resentful and resistant to work within the community, that allows their children to do things like that, but then a number of adults thought it fun as well. It's Sod's law, you are undermined whatever you do.

I lived in a village for 40 years and NEVER had this, I moved to a city and it was at least once or twice a week you would get abuse from someone. My nature is usually I don't take abuse from anyone, deaf or hearing, I had to put up with humiliations no adult should be expected to put up with, mainly because of a disabled son and partner, I would certainly otherwise, have hit out at those who hit me, or certainly taken steps to make the authorities know, as legal advice points out, this is pretty suicidal ! and invites more of the same, Sod's law personified.... The nature of this type of abuse is you accept harassments to a degree, because you have no choices, and it builds up resentments obviously.

Myself and two deaf friends went out and to confront youths to leave us alone, and we all paid the price for that by losing our home and being moved on, and got abuse from their feeble excuse for a parent. It is one law for hearing/youth/community and no law for us. Where I am now is quiet peaceful and well away from any 'community' really, it is not be my ideal choice, I do like people ! but no I don't trust many these days. My child would I am sure want to play with others, it is deemed we are all better off well away from those who call themselves a community, but in reality only accept those like them, with no values.

Deaf find communications hard enough as it is, and for years the police would not listen to deaf people, ALWAYS assuming we 'misunderstood' which suited the abuser down to the ground, they would just insist "We never said/did that.." then the onus is completely on you to prove anything.... this was letting the hearing abusers off the hook and making us look stupid to boot. The odds are stacked against deaf doing anything much. I don't want to admit hearing and community such as it is, is anti-deaf, but the proof is pretty much there, they are, it's institutional.

We were forced to move home twice, was this because I tried to stand my ground thus offering myself up as a viable target ? A number of deaf said at the club,'don't make waves...' they feared publicity. Many deaf still move rather than face up it themselves, the number must be pretty high of deaf people suffering abuse in the community. Cities are presumably the worst because there are more deaf seen. There is no answer at present that will work, thus I challenge 'hate crime' laws are valid or even viable in the deaf case, without a new abuse law we can charge parents and their children with there is no point to it.

March of the Cyborgs...

text of video.

A new implant may help people who can't have success with other devices finally hear again. HealthFirst reporter Leslie Toldo tells us about this new technology for a specific type of deafness.

We are talking about people who can't be helped by cochlear and other implants. This new device retrains the brain to hear. Danny Sanborn wishes he could go back to a time before his world went silent. He suffers from a disease that causes brain tumors. In order to get the tumors out, doctors had to sacrifice his auditory nerve.

"Before I had the tumors, I had hearing. But as soon as they took the tumors out, I didn't have any." A cochlear implant wasn't an option, so surgeons put in an auditory brainstem implant or ABI to restore certain sounds.

"We are bypassing the auditory nerve to directly stimulate the next level of sound processing in the brain," explained Dr. Daniel Lee. Lee says surgeons place 21 electrodes on the bundle of nerves that sit on the brain stem, the lower part of the brain. "The electrodes provide electrical current. It stimulates those nerves that are responsible for continuing a signal of sound to the rest of the brain."

A tiny microphone is positioned by the ear. It picks up sounds from the environment and digitally transmits them to a decoding chip placed under the skin. The chip stimulates the electrodes, allowing the patient to hear sounds. It doesn't restore complete hearing, but Sanborn is now able to hear the phone, an alarm clock and even his best friend.

While the device can restore some hearing, it can't restore a patient's balance that is damaged by the tumors. Up to one-in-25,000 Americans suffers from the condition that causes hearing loss like Sanborn's, called NF2.

Acquired Zeal.... a challenge to the status quo ?

Acquired Deafness, it's a conundrum wrapped in the enigma, in that those who acquire deafness DO re-invent themselves, it is the other point of hammering home still, how the disability took away what they had, we are moving on, we are not however lying down and rolling over to it, is the best way I can put it, so this would appear 'denial' I don't believe it is, no more than I believe 're-invention' is the pat solution.

When you are sitting in a quiet moment, then it hits you again. It's a substitute, most of us would prefer not to need. So the mental battle is there constantly. I doubt there is anyone who has completely gone from non-disablement to a profound one, and just looks on it as a hiccup. I don't want to be 'brave' and a 'hero' overcoming my issue, so some patronising person can pat me on the head. I hurt, a plaster won't do, I want it sorted, don't stand in my way. There is misinformation/images that go out. Moving on is not 'moving away' from what you lost. We are positive, positively annoyed the advances are too slow....Thus having the issues of acquirement of disability, the drive to overcome it is stronger in some, and total capitulation in some others, there is rarely any middle ground.

A sure-fire red flag to acquired, is to say 'get a grip' and 'move on', or as some bright spark said "Get a hobby..." !? I said I have one, it is called campaigning against 'deafness maintenance', (where people totally focus on support to the exclusion of eradications and alleviations), and looking for the cure. I think in the support area, everything gets forgotten as to the bottom line, of putting research and 'cures' on an equal footing. Why isn't 30% of all funding going to cure research ?

I embrace genetics/cochlear implants, the latter is the norm now, and for the former, there may be real inroads one day for many to gain useful hearing again. I cannot for the life of me understand why ANYONE would oppose it, or prevent it happening, so we can all sign at each other ? I think not, that's selfish. The recent survey (Top right of my blog re patients in the health area), showed us less than one third of deaf people wanted sign language used for patient communications, the rest wanted lip-reading, yet lip-reading has been zeroed by sign language plugs, it makes no sense. Another 20% did not want an BSL interpreter and they were profound deaf, only 2% wanted an BSL relay option in the Doctors.

The only puzzle as I see it, is that those who acquire and disablement have NO central representations of any kind ? that's the problem, we aren't uniting to make real change, if we did then by sheer numbers we could change the entire face of deaf awareness and disability, (which seems stuck with the wheelchair image). It got to the point where the wheelchair/Ear logos for some reason, intensely irritated me. As a survey response stated, we aren't just ears, we are people. Acquirment isn't represented, it''s time it was..