Mean Little Deaf Queer

Terry Galloway tells her story in a provocative new memoir called Mean Little Deaf Queer. The 248 book describes her difficult days as a deaf child, born on Halloween, thanks to an experimental antibiotic given to her mother. Living in Austin, Texas, the nine-year-old liked to cross-dress and smoke cigars, slipping in and out of gender as she grew older. Galloway takes readers into her experiences in theater though her story is not told chronologically. No sentimental tear-jerker, this Mean Little Deaf Queer is all about living life your own way.

Tip Sheets

If you’re getting ready for college and are hard-of-hearing, there are some new tip sheets that may help with the transition. The eight single-topic tip sheets come from the combined efforts of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and the Postsecondary Education Programs Network. Topics include Adjusting to Hearing Loss During High School and How Hearing Loss Impacts Communication and they define terms and offer resource options. The sheets are designed to also help parents and college administrators who may be enrolling hard-of-hearing students for the first time.

First Graduation

A Mobile, Alabama college has its first deaf graduate. Steven Pituk finished the welding certificate program at Bishop State Community College and already has a job as a welder at Crenshaw Machine in Bay Minette. The 24-year-old has one deaf brother and attended the Texas School for the Deaf and the Alabama School for the Deaf in Talladega. Pituk made it on the Deaf All-American Team for football, playing on a squad with nearly 40 straight wins against other deaf schools.

Federal Investigation

A Maryland video interpreting company is involved in a federal investigation. Investigators recently searched Viable’s headquarters in Rockville for evidence. It's not clear what they hoped to find. The company says it is "cooperating fully" with the investigation. Viable offers both hardware and software for videoconferencing and interpreters, both video-based and on-site. Many members of the staff are deaf themselves.

Videophones for Job Career Centers

Deaf jobseekers in Alabama now have a quicker way to meet with a career counselor at the state’s Career Services Centers. The Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services has bought a videophone system that connects jobseekers at its ten career centers across the state to on-call sign language interpreters. The equipment brings the interpreter into the conversation with the career counselor and the job seeker without having to arrange a face-to-face meeting. The Department has trained its eight interprets and other employees at the career center on how to use the $34,000 system.

Deaf Surfers

More than 60 deaf surfers gathered at Hawaii’s Queen's Surf Beach for the World Deaf Surfing Championships this weekend. It was the first time the event has been held in Hawaii. Previous championships have been held in Mexico, Australia and Japan. The next is set for Brazil in 2011.

Deaf surfers face the disadvantage of not being able to hear waves coming and can’t sit on boards chatting while waiting for waves as hearing surfers like to do.

New Implant

The FDA has approved a new bone anchored cochlear implants. The Cochlear Baha BP100 Sound Processor offers a digital signal. Cochlear Americas touts its new product as a “technological leap forward” for its design with children in mind. For more information go to Cochlear Americas website.

Captioning Grant

Look for more videos with closed captioning and audio description tracks for education soon. CaptionMax now has two federal grants to support its effort to provide captioning to educational media to grade school students. The Minnesota-based company will put closed captioning on more than 1700 video programs and 13,000 video clips from Discovery Education.

Disc Golf

Deaf Disc Golf Nationals are taking place today in Springfield, Illinois at two disc golf courses. Some 100 people are expected to take part from more than two dozen states. Participants don’t have to be deaf to take part. Parents, friends and interpreters are welcome.

Join the CIA

The CIA held a Deaf Summit last month, gathering educators to give them an inside look at co-op and job opportunities for students. The CIA's disability recruitment officer, Fran Edelen, says the agency offers accommodations for its deaf and hard-of-hearing employees and is looking for recruits. In fact, the CIA has a full staff of sign language interpreters working at the agengy’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. If you’re interested, the CIA has openings in a number of positions from engineering and computer science to theater makeup and costuming. Get more info here.

Rocker's Hearing Loss

Rock guitarist Jack White says he can no longer tell how loud he’s playing guitar. A member of White Stripes, White spoke with Rolling Stone Magazine about his hearing lose. He says, "I need to feel it (volume). I've gone through things where I go onstage and the sound guy at soundcheck comes over and he'll hold the decibel meter and show it to me while we're playing - and it's 127 decibels. That's not good. And I can't even tell. If it's not right there, it feels wimpy, it feels uninspiring." White is part of an upcoming guitar documentary called It Might Get Loud.

Starkey Gala

Elton John and Billy Crystal will be among the celebrities at this weekend's Starkey Foundation gala. The event takes place Sunday at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Deaf Rapper

WTTG-TV in Washington reports on a young deaf rapper.

ASL Test Proposed

A Massachusetts ASL teacher in danger of losing her job may get to sit down soon with school officials and make her case. Daniela Ioannides was told she would be fired if she doesn’t earn her teacher certification. Ioannides was born deaf and is struggling to pass her state's English competency test. ASL is her first language and the syntax is completely different from English. She teaches at Andover High and the University of Massachusetts Boston. The state's assistant commissioner of education and several other state education officials have agreed to meet with her. Ioannides is hoping Massachusetts may join three other states with an ASL certificate program and create an appropriate teacher certification exam for the deaf and hard of hearing.

The Pros & Cons of The Lyric

A new hearing aid lets you avoid frequently changing batteries. The Lyric from InSound Medical (based in Newark, California) can be wore continuously for as long as 4 months. Doctors put the cylindrical device deep inside a patient’s ear where it can’t be seen – provided they have large enough and straight enough ear canal. The Lyric can be wore during most activities but not swimming. A new model mau take care of that issue later this year.

Other limitations: The Lyric is only for those with mild-to-moderate hearing loss and can cost as much as $4000 a year. When it dies, you have to see a doctor to get the batteries replaced. Or if ear wax clogs it, you'll have to go to a doctor. Some clinicians wonder about safety because there is no research on the long-term effects.

City Pays for Tasering

The Wichita City Council will pay a deaf man $50,000 so he'll drop a lawsuit against the city. Police tasered Donnell Williams when he failed to follow their instructions after they burst into his home two years ago. Officers were responding to an false emergency call about a shooting. Williams later filed a lawsuit. The city is admitting no wrong doing in the settlement.

State School May Close

Kansas may close its school for the deaf in Olathe or merge it with the state school for the blind in Kansas City. A panel will hold a hearing on the issue July 27. The Kansas State School for the Deaf serves more than 100 students with a $9.5 million budget and about 150 employees.

Murder Trial Set

A deaf man will face murder charges after an Ohio judge ruled him competent to stand trial. Charlie Myers is accused of killing a woman at her home, assaulting her son and then driving from Columbus to Harrison Township, leaving the child at a rest stop along the way. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

iPhone as Hearing Aid

A new iPhone app will turn the device into a hearing aid. SoundAMP will run you $9.99 to amplify the sound around you. Once you activate the app, you plug in a set of earphones and a large slider appears in the display for you to set the volume. If you miss something, you can tap the screen and re-listen to the last 5 or 30 seconds of sound- a conversation, a loud speaker announcement, a lecture, etc.

Funding Shift

Idaho’s school for the deaf and blind in Gooding is now under a newly formed board. State lawmakers decided to move it out from under the education board and created the Idaho Bureau of Educational Services for the Deaf and the Blind. The school dropped its summer programs as part of an effort to slice more than half-a-million dollars from the yearly budget of nearly $9 million. With the change in administration, the school now can access money from the education stabilization fund because it falls as a line item in the public schools budget.

Dog Found in Trash

A service dog for the hearing impaired is a hero. It found another dog left for dead in a large trash bin this past Saturday. A pet sitter in Midland, Texas was walking a nine-month-old yellow lab named Jack when it became distraught at the bin. Sure enough, the sitter found a black terrier mix inside.

Deaf NBA Player

Lance Allred is playing in the summer league for the Orlando Magic. What sets him apart is that Lance is deaf. The 27-year-old is trying to work his way back to the NBA after playing in the big show with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was the first legally deaf player in the league. He’s also played proball in Turkey and France as well as the NBA's minor league (the D-League) where he averaged more than 15 points a game.

The story of his upbringing in a Mormon polygamous compound located in Montana is told in his book Longshot: The Adventures of a Deaf Fundamentalist Mormon Kid and His Journey to the NBA.

Tweaking Implants

KMGH-TV in Denver takes a look at advances in the adjustment of cochlear implants in this video report.

Tasering Payment

Wichita votes today on whether to pay a deaf man $50,000 for tasering him in his own home. Police hit Donnell Williams with a taser when he failed to follow their instructions after they burst into his home one night two years ago. Officers were responding to an emergency call about a shooting that turned out to be fake and startled Williams coming out of the bath tub.

The Door Knob Alarm

A Maryland woman has created a device to alert the hearing impaired when someone is turning a door knob. Janet Williams' Door Knob Alarm sends out a piercing tone and a series of red lights when the door knob is turned from either side. The donut shaped alarm will fit on any door and detects movement.

Fire Rescue

A cat may have saved the life of a deaf woman in Salt Lake City. Elva Petersen's cat alerted her to an early morning fire yesterday at her home. She escaped the burning building unharmed (along with the cat) by breaking a bedroom window. A ladder, placed against the house by neighbors, helped her escape the flames.

Signs of Hope

A rape crisis center with counseling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing has opened in Las Vegas. The Signs of Hope center will offer services 24 hours a day and payments are offered on a sliding scale. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held last week at its offices at Rock Psychological Services on McLeod Drive.

Job in Jeopardy

Two dozen students rallied yesterday for a Massachusetts ASL teacher at her school. She will lose her this fall if she doesn’t earn her teacher certification. Daniela Ioannides was born deaf and is struggling to pass her state's English competency test. She teaches at Andover High and the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Deaf Women United

Deaf Women United meets July 22-26 in Portland. Click here for more information.

Arrest for Obscene Messages

A man in his 20's living near Scranton, Pennsylvania is facing charges he used an internet relay service to send dozens of obscene messages. Police in Hawley say the man admitted what he was doing and claims he was just entertaining himself. The instant message system is intended for use by the deaf. Andrew Brunell would type an offensive message on his computer and the service would call the person and read the message aloud - no matter how crude - between 11pm and 4am.

Schools Combined

The Louisiana School for the Deaf is now teaching some blind students. By combining LSD with the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired, the state is hoping to save money - perhaps millions of dollars. Partly because some 50 employees are expected to lose their jobs.

Jamaica Changes Driving Law

Jamaica is giving the go-ahead for the deaf to drive by the end of next month. Deaf drivers will have to affix a signaling device to their cars. Some members of the police force have been trained in sign language.

Looking Back.. 16 years

July 1, 1993 the FCC required all analog television receivers with screens 13 inches or larger sold or manufactured to contain built-in decoder circuitry to display closed captioning.

The Village of the Deaf

A video report on a villiage in India located nestled in the Himalayan mountains known as the village of the deaf and mute. This comes from New Tang Dynasty Televivision, a Chinese language service based in New York.

School Building for Sale

The Las Vegas Charter School for the Deaf may lose its building. The school opened last fall with three students in a building owned by Creative Kids Learning Center. The Center’s owners are willing to sell the whole 7300 square-foot building for $1 million. But that figure is beyond the resources of the School.

Minnesota Money

A new Minnesota law goes into effect tomorrow making it easier for deaf and hearing-impaired residents to access online state services. New funds will update state Web sites for the disabled.

$30 Million to Deaf School

Rhode Island's recent bond sale has raised more than $54 million - and much of it will go to the state school for the deaf. Some $30 million will help pay for the design, construction and the equipment necessary for a new Rhode Island School for the Deaf to be located in Providence.

Implant Agorithms

Dr. Philip Loizou is working on improving the filtering system of cochlear implants. Recently given the highest award in the field of acoustic signal processing, Loizou is a fellow in the Acoustical Society of America. He also teaches electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. He says the processing system of implants can be changed to better cut out background sounds at noisy restaurants and other public places by developing algorithms to remove or suppress unwanted sound.

Video Helps Financial Advisor

Louis Schwarz is a financial adviser in Bethesda, Maryland. Schwarz is deaf and uses video relay to keep in touch with his clients. A senior managing partner at Schwarz Financial Services, Schwarz has offered money advice for more than a quarter of a century. His company has invested in ten videophones and find that many of the firm's new clients come from outside the DC area, thanks to the new technology. Clients must have at least $100,000 to invest, giving Schwarz Financial more than $20 million a year to invest.