First brain stem implant in Clinical trial successful

The first brain stem implant at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles took place Tuesday. Riskier than typical cochlear implant surgery, only a few have been performed on young children in the U.S. Tuesday's procedure--on a deaf 3-year-old boy--was the first in a federally approved clinical trial. Read more at the LA Times here.

Rush Limbaugh on his Cochlear Implant

image from Rush Limbaugh.com

Rush Limbaugh was asked about his cochlear implant this week during his radio talk show. Limbaugh told the caller:

The one thing people cannot replicate is total deafness. They cannot, therefore, understand it. You can pretend to be blind, you can pretend to be paralyzed from the waist down, but you cannot pretend to be deaf. There's no way you can artificially create that. Even if you put yourself in a soundproof room, you hear something. You can hear yourself breathe or whatever. Total deafness, people can't relate to it. That's why the deaf always get blamed for not hearing things, 'cause people can't relate...it's the only disability where the "victim," as it were, is blamed for having the disability.

Read a transcript of the entire call and Limbaugh's answer on his website here.

the Billion Words March campaign

A free video streaming site is using crowd sourcing to get more captions on videos. Viki.com allows its 30 million users to write captions in the language of their choice. The goal of the "Billion Words March campaign" is to reach 1 billion words captioned by the end of 2014. Academy Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin is putting her support behind the effort. Find out more here or watch this video interview with Matlin.

Forbes Show at U of Minnesota

Rapper Sean Forbes drew hundreds to the University of Minnesota’s Coffman Memorial Union Monday night for a concert. Sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Disability Resource Center, the event was covered by WCCO-TV in Minneapolis (captions available).

Deaf Theological Center opens

A Deaf Theological Center is opening near Nashville. Deaf believers will be offered "customized seminary-level training for missions and ministry." The work is the combined effort on the part of the International Mission Board, Union University, the Southern Baptist Conference for the Deaf, Brentwood Baptist Church and Brentwood Baptist Deaf Church. The Center is starting with six students who are being taught in ASL. Classes included Old Testament, New Testament, biblical doctrine, biblical hermeneutics and missions/church planting. There's more information here. Below is a video explaining the mission effort.

Deaf Theological Center launches for missions task from IMB on Vimeo.

Silent Shout

Image from Signmark video "Score"

Rapper Signmark is back with an new album after a four year break. The Finnish singer (real name Marko Vuoriheimo) received international acclaim five years ago for his song Speakerbox. The first deaf person to sign a deal with an international record label, his new album, Silent Shout, includes a song in southern Chinese sign language. Here's a sample.

Gallaudet star hopes to fulfill NFL dream

Image from Gallaudet Athletics

When the NFL draft kicks off next week Gallaudet defensive lineman Adham Talaat will be waiting for a phone call. Talaat thinks he could do well in the pros. "Derrick Coleman is thriving in the NFL despite his hearing loss is opening eyes and doors in that aspect," Talaat told the Boston Herald. The paper reports, "Talaat posted impressive numbers at Gallaudet's first-ever Pro Day last month." Read the full article here.

Dress Loud Day

Canadian school students are "dressing loud" today to raise awareness about hearing loss. This is Speech and Hearing Awareness Month in Canada. A group called VOICE started the Dress Loud Day movement. The advocacy group suggested elementary and high school students put on the loudest, wildest, wackiest clothing they could find. VOICE has been supporting parents of children with hearing loss in Canada for a half century. Find out more here.

Musicians 4 times more likely to become Deaf

You are four times more likely to become deaf if you are a professional musician than the average person. And it doesn't matter whether the musician is playing in a rock band or a classical music orchestra. That's the finding of a study out of Germany by researchers at Bremen and Oldenburg Universities along with the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology. Their recommendation? Musicians should wear protective in-ear devices and in stall sound shields between different sections of an orchestra. Details are in the journal Occupational Health and Environmental Medicine. You can read more here.

Meet Alex

He founded the South Tyneside Deaf Club in northern England, helps translate TV programs into BSL for ITV SignPost and teaches BSL classes. The managing director of ITV SignPost says, “Alex is a shining example of how profoundly deaf people can make a massive impact on their community, their peers and their country." Read about Alex Duguid in The Shields Gazette here.

TV captioning exceptions

If a TV station wants a waiver to the FCC's new closed captioning requirements, they can file an appeal online. The window for filing such a request starts tomorrow. The rule also applies to cable operators and program producers. In February, the Commission ordered video program creators and distributors to make an effort to improve the quality of closed captioning but the FCC is willing to hear from those who say doing so is a financial burden. While the FCC didn't set any specific standards, the FCC says that any organization asking for exceptions will be judged on the basis of the nature and cost of closed captions for that particular programming, the type of operation, the impact on the operation of the provider and the providers financial resources.

Science Gave My Son the Gift of Sound

A mother's deicision about what to do about her son's deafness is told in the book I Can Hear You Whisper: An Intimate Journey through the Science of Sound and Language. TIME Magazine printed an excerpt here.

ADA Lawsuits Hit Small Businesses in Cali

A cottage industry has grow up in California around ADA law, NPR reports. Some people are making a living by filing hundreds complaints each year, many against minority owned small businesses, according to the radio network. Hear or read the story here.

Regrowing auditory nerves

Australian researchers say they've figured out a way for Gene therapy to make cochlear implants work better. Sending a series of short electric bursts to cells could cause auditory nerve endings to regenerate. If they are right, implant users to get more "pitch" out of their devices. The gene therapy technique called "electroporation." The team says it successfully tested its technique on deaf guinea pigs. Human trails will have to wait until they figure out how to make the effect last longer than just a few months. Read the details of the study in the latest edition of the journal Science Translational Medicine here.

Know Your Rights When Dealing with Police

The ACLU is releasing a video today featuring Marlee Matlin. The Academy Award winner talks about the problems that deaf people have with the police because of communication barriers. It's part o public education effort launched by the American Civil Liberties Union aimed at ensuring people who are deaf know their rights when interacting with law enforcement. She says, "Getting stopped by the police, even at a routine traffic stop, can be a scary experience. For those of us who are deaf or hard of hearing, it can be even scarier. When officers don’t realize we can’t hear them, it can lead to confusion or worse. As the wife of a law enforcement officer, as well as a deaf person, I know that police culture and deaf culture can be very different, and this video is here to bridge the gap." Watch the video below.

Review of Tribes in Berkeley

The stage production of Tribes is being produced at the new Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California through May 18. One reviewer says, "At times, the verbiage gets a bit thick, and the production seems about to stall in white noise. But “Tribes” comes together in the second act." Read more here.

USC Lectures on cochlear implants

Three people were honored recently for the their work with cochlear implants by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. Graeme Clark, Ingeborg Hochmair and Blake Wilson spoke at the University of Southern California as part of the Lasker Lectures. Read more here.

Sean Forbes Reflects on Influences

Deaf hip hop performer Sean Forbes spoke at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York yesterday as part of the Cornell University Deaf Awareness Project. The school's student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, interviewed Forbes and asked him about his musical beginnings and commitment to the deaf community. Read the interview here.

School turns green space into farmland

TThe Kentucky School for the Deaf has broken ground on a 23 acres garden and research center on its campus. The Advocate Messenger says students last worked the land in the 1970s. Plans are to use the corn, potatoes and strawberries in the school's cafeteria and local food banks. Read the full story here.

Lawsuit against Gally tossed out

Angela McCaskill
image from Gallaudet University

A million dollar lawsuit against Gallaudet University has been dismissed by a federal judge. We first told you about Angela McCaskill filing the lawsuit last fall in a post here. The University’s chief diversity officer said the school violated an anti-discrimination law when she was placed on paid leave for signing a petition about Maryland’s gay-marriage law. McCaskill was demoted when she was allowed to return to work. Her lawsuit asked for $2.5 million. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg wrote:

“While a citizen has an unfettered right to petition her government, such a constitutional claim aimed at Gallaudet cannot succeed here, as the university and its employees are private parties not subject to the First Amendment’s strictures."

You can read the decision here.

Deaf man sues city over injury

Jesus A. Trevino is suing the city of Bakersfield, California because he says a police officer injured him when Trevino didn't hear the officer's commands. The Bakersfield Californian reports that Trevino, who is deaf, was trying to get into his own house after forgetting his keys. Read the full story here.

A Son’s Deafness Prompts a Scientific Journey

Lydia Denworth's new book I Can Hear You Whisper: An Intimate Journey Through the Science of Sound and Language "explores both what happened to her own child and the relationship between the brain and sound and language." Read more about it in the New York Times here.

ASL rap battle

It was a sign language rap battle on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week. ASL terps Amber Galloway, Holly Maniatty, and deaf entertainer Jo Rose Benfield matched skills to a Wiz Khalifa song. The video already has more than 900k views. You can see the video below (no captions).

Board votes to close school

The Austine School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing will close in June. The Vermont Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Board of Directors voted 8-1 to shut down the Brattleboro, Vermont school. The vote also closes the Williams Center which provides emotional support for deaf children. The decision is expected to cause 50 people to lose their jobs. You can read more about the vote in the Bennington Banner here.

A deaf wedding in 1940

This video is a British news reel, which was shown in movie theaters during 1940 (no captions).

Baseball team pretends player is deaf

A group of professional baseball players pretended one of their teammates was deaf for an entire month--in order to play a prank on a player. The Chihuahuas is a minor league team of the San Diego Padres out of El Paso, Texas that had outfielder Jeff Francoeur believing that pitcher Jorge Reyes was deaf. Not only were the players on the team part of the prank, so was the coaching and training staffs. They even got Francoeur to talk about it on camera. You can see it below--though the video creator ironically choice not to include captioning.

Health agency's flaws

A doctor who has worked with Starkey Hearing foundation blames the World Health Organization for making the situation worse for people in Africa. Dr. Robert Dean has a practice in Palm Harbor, Florida and has led to several humanitarian travel missions, writes this in the Tampa Bay Times:

I've been humbled and honored to help to mitigate hearing loss through the Starkey Hearing Foundation. But as we observe World Health Day, we need to ask why the World Health Organization isn't doing more to shrink the demand for missions like the ones that keep Starkey volunteers so busy.

Read the opinion piece here.

Megadeth flies born-deaf woman to Vegas for her first rock concert

The band Megadeth is flying Sarah Churman and her husband to Las Vegas for a concert. A couple of years ago, we shared with you a video of Churman getting her cochlear implants turned on. The video went viral and more than 20 million people saw her reaction (the video is below). Now, she's getting her first rock concert and you read the full story at the Las Vegas Review-Journal here.

Feeling the music at concerts

An Indianapolis has installed something to help deaf patrons better enjoy the event. WISH-TV has a video report below. No captioning but you can read the story here.

Live5News.com | Charleston, SC | News, Weather, Sports

Deaf Actress Dies at 70

The woman honored for her role in the Broadway version of Children of a Lesser God died yesterday. Phyllis Frelich won the 1980 Tony award for Best Actress in a Play for her work as Sarah Norman--a part that playright Mark Medoff wrote especially for Frelich. Marlee Matlin got an Oscar for playing the same part in the film version of Children of a Lesser God. The Hollywood Reporter says Frelich died at the age of 70. Both her parents and siblings were deaf. she performed with the National Theater of the Deaf, the Broadway edition of Big River and signed the national anthem at the 1998 Super Bowl.

Deaf Woman tells Police she was assaulted

A Minnesota convicted sex offender is facing charges that he raped and beat a deaf woman in St. Paul. Police say a naked woman ran from the apartment of Michael Darnell Burns to a neighbor, saying Burns had assaulted her, according to WCCO-TV. Read the full story here.

Professional musicians work with preschoolers

A Tennessee school held a concert today featuring preschoolers. WMC-TV reports in the video below on the Memphis Oral School's efforts (captioning available).

Action News 5 - Memphis, Tennessee

Drummer gets implants

Deaf musician Doug Lagasse lost his hearing to cystic fibrosis treatment. That was more than a decade ago. This week, he got some of that hearing back at the University of Colorado Hospital where he was given a cochlear implant. Watch a report about Doug Lagasse in the video report below from KUSA-TV in Denver.

Rush Limbaugh--second implant

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is getting another cochlear implant. More than a decade ago he got his first one. In preparation for the new implant, Limbaugh told his radio audience this week that he has to do something that "I have always wanted to do and have never done before. I was permitted to watch surgery. It was the most amazing thing. You know, I have a cochlear implant, and so I was curious to see it.” The audio clip (no captions) is recorded on the video post below.

Gallaudet Charter Day

Your diplomas from Gallaudet University carries the signature of the U.S. president. Gallaudet is celebrating the president who got the school started--Abraham Lincoln because 150 years have passed since his signature authorized the founding of the Washington, DC school. The Washington Post tells the story here.

Are deaf people being let down in UK hospitals?

The plight of deaf patients in UK hospitals is getting national attention thanks to the BBC and the weekly magazine program See Hear. Deaf people have been going on record about difficult experiences they've had in hospitals due to lack of sign language interpreters, reports the BBC. Read about three cases where this could have been avoided in an article here. Below you'll find a video taken just a few days ago of The House of Lords discussing a report that shows both minor and major health issues are going undiagnosed because of the problem.

Controversy for Deaf-Blind ensemble

(image of Nalaga’at from the performing group's website)

Nalaga’at is the only ensemble of actors who are both deaf and blind. The professional acting company from Israeli is touring the U.S. and has caused debate among theater critics. Find out what the fuss is about in the audio report below from WBUR radio in Boston (where the tour ends). Or read about it here.

Deaf school may not reopen next year

A Vermont school is struggling to survive. "The Austine School for the Deaf in Brattleboro has seen its on-campus enrollment shrink from about 140 in the early 1980s to about 20 now. Staff took a 6 percent pay cut this year' reports The Burlington Free Press. Read the full story here.

Providing the Deaf-Blind with new Technology

The FCC has a program designed to provide low-income deaf-blind individuals with communication devices the truing necessary to operate them. In the year and a half that the iCanConnect program has been around, it has helped some 2000 people. Read more about it in an Associated Press report here.

High School Hockey Sensation

A Maryland high schooler is turning heads with his hockey play. Dominic Norris set a freshman record for the most goals for his school. WUSA-TV spoke with Norris about his play--and about being deaf.

Captioning options for broadcasters

Major video producers are scrambling to meet FCC-mandated rules requiring captions for all video content--and those rules apply whether the video is created for TV or the Internet. Broadcasters meeting in Las Vegas this week for the National Association of Broadcasters convention are looking over new equipment that manufacturers say will make the process easier and more accurate.

One of the difficult areas for broadcasters to cover is news programming. The Commission is requiring broadcasters adopt technology that turns news teleprompter scripts into captions that viewers can read. Some news is uncaptioned because the material is typically ad-libbed--such as sports, weather and breaking news. Here are some of the companies offering equipment designed to deal with those issues and meet FCC requirements, which unofficially include a 90 percent accuracy mark:

Comprompter has come up with a voice-activated Caption Central platform that is, according to the company, about 95 percent accurate for a captioned-trained person. Comprompter's automated platform has an ad-lib setting that switches from the teleprompter script to a studio mic when reporters go "off script."There's more info in a PDF here.

Telestream offers MacCaption and CaptionMaker software focuses on compliance with the FCC requirements, with tools for dealing with such issues as caption placement. There's more information here.

Grass Valley has software (Softel Swift Create V8) that creates and manages captions. The company touts the software's ability to adapt to smartphones. There's a profanity tool designed to deal with questionable language. Read more about it here.

Swift TX is ready to deal with multiple languages and captioning in real time. Read about it here.

i-Yuno Media Group Americas has software called CaptionCast that is cloud based and has had success in Asia. Captioners are able to simply type what they hear. More here.

"How I heard for the first time … and became an internet sensation"

If you saw a video recently of a woman from England who cried when she had her cochlear implants turned on, you may already know Jo Milne. She writes in the Guardian, "Last week I hit the headlines when a video of me hearing for the first time after having cochlear implants fitted went viral. If you have no hearing it is difficult to imagine what it will be like to hear for the first time, and I was completely overwhelmed by the experience. I was born profoundly deaf, although this wasn't immediately obvious to doctors.." Read more of her story, in her own words, here.

Film fest this month in Maine

The 12th annual Maine Deaf Film Festival is taking place on April 25 and 26. Find out more here. It takes place at the University of Southern Maine’s campus in Portland and sponsored by the school's American Sign Language Club. Find out more here.

Protesters want deaf man freed

Hundreds of people came out this week to show support for Felix Garcia at the Florida Capitol. The deaf man has been in jail for 32 years for a crime he didn't commit. Prosecutors claimed Garcia was guilty of killing a man in Tampa during a drug robbery in 1981. His brother has since confessed to the crime. But Garcia remains behind bars and it will take an act of the governor to get him out. Garcia had no interpreter and did not know what was happening in the courtroom, according to the Florida Association of the Deaf. State Senator Thad Altman has offered legislation required licensed interpreters for court proceedings which you can read here. There's an online petition about the case here.

UK Implant video goes viral

The video of a UK woman having her cochlear implants turned on for the first time has gone viral--getting more than a million views in less than three days. Joanne Milne has Usher syndrome, which causes hearing and sight loss. Here's the video recorded by Milne's mother, Ann, at the Midlands Implant Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.

Airline note upsets deaf couple

A Texas couple is upset because of a note they got when American Airlines returned some lost luggage. Find out why a note attached to the luggage made them ask for an apology. Read the story from Indianapolis' WXIN-TV here.

NBC: Company knowingly sold defective cochlear implants

Defective implants were sold to young children and adults for years--even after learning that a significant number of the devices had failed, according to the NBC's Today Show. Here's the video report.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Texas Deaf Fest

The 22nd annual East Texas deaf festival took place in Jacksonville, Texas this past weekend. It first started in 1993 and its leaders are striving to improve services for the deaf in 23 East Texas counties. KLTV has a video report.

KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texas | ETX News

A Deaf Toddler's Journey to get a brainstem implant

ABC News followed a family for half a year as their toddler went through brainstem implant surgery. Find out what happened to Alex Frederick in this video (captions available).


ABC Entertainment News | ABC Business News

Aussie B-ball player Misses Award Ceremony

An Australian basketball player who won the Waverley Leader Senior Sports Star Award missed the award ceremony because he was getting his second cochlear implant. Read about Patrick Lane in Herald Sun here.

Grand Opening of Gally's 150th

The Gallaudet University Museum's 150th permanent exhibition opens in Chapel Hall exactly one month from today (April 8). You'll find more information here.

School gets 1st deaf leader

A school is getting its first deaf superintendent. The Missouri School for the Deaf will be lead by Ernest Garrett starting in July. Garrett is from St. Louis so he knows the area. He has served as president of the National Black Deaf Advocates and presently is executive director of the Missouri Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He holds degrees from the University of Arkansas and Gallaudet University. You can read the full announcement here.

How Deaf People Bank

A new program could change the way the deaf bank through the use of student interpreters. Here's a video report from WROC-TV in Rochester.

PA girl gets implant

A young girl in Harrisburg just got a cochlear implant--just like her brother. WHP-TV reports (no captions).

A TV first

On this date one year ago (March 4, 2013) A episode of Switched at Birth was aired with the entire show in ASL. Producers of the ABC Family program say this was the first time a scripted series on mainstream television used only American Sign Language.

Troopers Cleared

The Oklahoman is reporting 3 troopers have been cleared after hitting and arresting and a deaf man following a hit-and-run accident. Read the full story here.

Parent of Deaf school student suing state over sexual abuse

A parent of a Maryland School for the Deaf students is suing the state. The mother says her daughter needs counseling because of the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of a former employee who was convicted of sexual molestation. But state officials say it's too late and refuse to help. WBAL-TV has a video and written report here.

Police: Deaf Teen Beaten by Dad

An Oklahoma City man is behind bars for hitting his deaf son. Police say a neighbor spotted the man "kicking, stomping, and punching"15-year-old boy in the back yard of his home. Here's a video report from KOCO-TV. You can read a transcript of the story here.

New captioning rules had long journey

"FCC rules aimed at stopping inaccurate closed captioning took ten years to become a reality," reports the LA Times. "New FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler made it a priority of his regime." Read the full story at the LA Times here.

Building Bridges at Fresno State

Rosemary Diaz spoke at Fresno State this past week as part of a student-selected lecture series featuring "outstanding faculty." The Communicative Disorders and Deaf Studies Department professor talked about Building Bridges between the Deaf-World and Hearing Allies. Watch her entire talk in the video below.

Communication tips from the deaf

A business consultant argues that deaf people have much to teach the hearing about effective communication. Bruno Kahne's book  Deaf Tips – Powerful Communication (which came out this past fall) suggests "Deaf people are not deaf when they are together, only when they are in contact with hearing people" and their communication abilities to pass messages is "much faster and more precisely than any hearing person." Read more in the Independent here.

Lessons from working with Ugandan deaf children

Canadian students visiting Uganda as part of a summer program learned to appreciate the deaf in a new way. Nidhi Joseph and Ooi Koon Peng spent three months working for a school for the Deaf in a rural part of the country. They shared their discoveries at a TEDx event. Here's a video of their presentation from last year.

Fighting to get ASL classes in Michigan

A college student is working hard to bring ASL courses to her campus. Eastern Michigan University has none at the moment, but social work major Ashlee Lewis is out to change. She already has more than 150 people who have signed her petition. Read more about her effort at the Eastern Echo here.

New caption rules from the FCC

New rules are being adopted by the FCC that it hopes will improve the quality of closed captioning. The LA Times reports that two two pages of proposals include a requirement "that captions must match spoken words in dialogue and convey background noises and other sounds to the fullest extent possible, according to agency officials familiar with the order... The order will also mandate that captions not block other content on the screen, overlap one another, run off the edge of the video screen or be blocked by other information.” Read more here.

Deaf in India

Attending school in India is difficult for the deaf. One man told the BBC, "In my school, the teachers treated us very badly. It used to make me angry. They would just write on the board but they could not explain what they were writing. It was very difficult to learn." The British news agency reports that "Most deaf Indian children reach adulthood with a vocabulary of just 50-odd words, and little ability to understand or cope with the world. They are rarely employable." Read more here.

More on suit over police beating

We told you last Friday about a lawsuit filed by a deaf man who claims he was beaten by police. Here's a video report from KCAL-TV in Los Angeles (captions included).

Deaf Tradie on Australian TV show

James Vea was born profoundly deaf, but that hasn’t stopped him from becoming an apprentice carpenter and getting his hands dirty on The Block, a show airing on Australia's Channel Nine. Here's a video about it on the network's Today show.

Lawsuit claims hospitals failed to help dying deaf patient

The children of Alfred Weinrib are suing three Long Island, New York medical facilities for not getting the deaf man an interpreter--for seven months. Weinrib eventually died. The family attorney tells the New York Post “This is one of the worst cases of it’s kind that we’ve seen or read about.” Read more here.

School pays to settle service animal suit

An Oregon school is paying off a deaf student to settle a claim over her service dog. Portland State University will give Cindy Leland $160,000 after the school refused to let her service animal live in her dorm or be allowed in her biology lab. The school issued a statement denying the allegations, but administrators still agreed to settle the suit and admitted "Ms. Leland's experience was difficult and wish her success as she continues her studies."

SoCal police sued for excessive force

Jonathan Meister claims in a lawsuit that four policemen in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne assaulted him a year ago. The Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness filed the suit for Meister. While the police report says he resisted arrest, Meister says he was just packing his car, getting ready to go to a Bible study. When police called out to him, questioning why he was moving boxes from a friend's yard, Meister didn't respond because he could not hear them. When they did get his attention, Meister indicated he was deaf. But the confrontation quickly escalated into a struggle to get Meister into handcuffs.  Officers used a Taser on Meister multiple times. Charges against Meister that he assaulted the officers were dropped.

Sue Thomas on pastor turned atheist

Sue Thomas is responding to the deaf pastor who says he is now an atheist. Thomas worked undercover for the FBI and even had a TV show based on her life, which you can read here. Thomas is a Christian who had a strong reaction to Justin Vollmar's revelation that he “is spiritually dead” and never truly knew God. You can see his confession here. Thomas wrote in the In The Christian Post, “For this deaf man who has made your post to bear no witness unto Him, my heart is saddened,” Thomas wrote. “The deaf man screams that there is no God. Well, he never knew Him. He is spiritually dead and he is deaf as a stone to the voice of a living God.” You can read more here. Below  is a video interview with Thomas from 2010.

Lottery Scam

Two deaf women have stolen thousands of dollars from an elderly woman through a lottery scheme, according to police in the Columbus, Ohio suburb of Westerville. WSYX-TV has more here.

Captioning on Weather channels

The Weather Channel has asked the FCC to look into the closed captioning for WeatherNation--after DirecTV dropped the Weather Channel in favor of WeatherNation. According to The Weather Channel, the WeatherNation captions are "so inaccurate that they nearly defy description." DirecTV responded by calling it a programming issue, which WeatherNation is working on improve.

Cochlear's Profit Slumps

Share of Cochlear, Ltd. fell on the Australian stock market after the implant maker announced a 73 percent fall in profits. That includes cash set aside over a patent dispute, which you can read about here. But even with that money set aside, profit still fell 53 percent. Cochlear is the world's largest maker of hearing implants with about two-thirds of the world market. It's most recent device is the Nucleus 6, which allows users to connect wirelessly to smartphones. While U.S. regulators approved the device, not all of it's feature go through regulators. Rivals include Sonova, MED-EL, and Neurelec.

Pastor: I Have Become an Atheist

The man who led the Virtual Deaf Church says he is no longer a believer. Justin Vollmar revealed in a video post that he is now an atheist and will no longer be making sign-language videos explaining Biblical concepts. Vollmar says, “A profound wonderful change occurred in my life. My mind just completely shifted to the other side. After a long and mighty struggle, the answer finally became clear. This may shock you completely. Yes, I have become an atheist. In the end, I am completely convinced that there is truly no God. “It is all nonsense.” See the announcement for yourself in the video below.

Cochlear Implant Breakthrough: No External Parts

That disk-shaped transmitter that goes outside the heads of implant wearers could soon be a thing of the past. MIT researchers are presenting a paper this week showing how they've developed a chip that could be wirelessly recharged by a cell phone with an adaptor after about eight hours of use. The new implant uses the middle ear rather than an external microphone, as implants on the market do now. Users would not have to take it off near water and there wouldn't be the concern that cochlear implant users have now over the possibility of part of the device being lost or broken or stolen. Details of the work will be presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. Read more from MIT here.

Scandal over Musician who faked being Deaf

One of Japan's most popular musical figures didn't write his music. And he wasn't deaf, as he claimed. Mamoru Samuragochi hired someone to write most of his music. He apologized this past week, but didn't explain why he is admitting his deception at this time. The ghost writer turns out to be a teacher at a prestigious music college in Tokyo. Read more at the New York Times here. Below is a video of some of Samuragochi’s music that he apparently did not write.

STOMP performers visit Gally

Performers from the touring company STOMP introduced their beat to students at Gallaudet University this week. STOMP is a stage show mixing foot stomps, hand claps and percussion instruments, performing at the National Theater in DC through this weekend. WJLA-TV has a video report of the Gally visit below (no captions but some text is posted here).

Deaf Inmate gets $150k

A deaf prison inmate will get $150,000 because Oregon's Department of Corrections refused to provide him with an interpreter. Prison officials also gave Merle Baldridge jobs like cleaning toilets. The state has agreed to provide all deaf inmates with interpreters for "orientation, medical exams, counseling and other daily interactions of life." Read more about the legal settlement in the Oregonian here.

CNN wins appeals court victory in captioning lawsuit

An appeals court is siding with CNN in a case involving online captions. A panel from the 9th Circuit issued a ruling today over a lawsuit filed by The Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, or GLAAD. The advocacy group claims that CNN violates a California state law by not providing captioning on all its videos. While the news network puts captions on video from its regular programs (federal law requires it) the network does not put them on the short video clips it posts on its website. In today's ruling, the appeals court said CNN was not guilty of discrimination, based on the First Amendment. That was the opposite conclusion from a lower court that said the request for captions was not about infringing on CNN's First Amendment rights but an issue of access.

The case isn't over yet. The three judge panel asked the state's highest court to look into whether California's Disabled Persons Act applies to websites. Read today's ruling here. The request that the California Supreme Court weigh in on whether the Act covers websites is here.

Coleman hands out hearing aids

What was Seattle Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman doing before the Super Bowl got underway? The first deaf offensive player in the NFL helped handed out hearing aids in New York as part of a Starkey Hearing Foundation outreach at Yankee Stadium. He even got fitted for new hearing devices for himself. Coleman contributed to the Seahawks victory on Sunday with his special teams play.

The biggest ovation you never heard

image from Gallaudet Athletics 

More than 20 years ago, Kenny Walker was playing in his last college football game. The 70,000 Nebraska fans honored him with sign language applause, all at the same time. Walker is one of only three deaf players to rise from the college ranks to the NFL. The third player is Seattle Seahawks' Derrick Coleman, who took part in the Super Bowl this past weekend. Walker spoke with Al Jazeera about Coleman:

"I learned signing English, so as my second language I started learning American Sign Language. That changed my communication style and forced me to work harder to change to another language. Derrick hasn’t had those experiences. He didn’t use interpreters all throughout college, because he didn’t need them. I look at videotapes of his games and see what he’s gone through with his hearing loss, and I think, “Wow, that’s a lot of hard work there.”

Read the full interview here here.

Straddling two worlds

A Washington Post columnist explores the play Tribes (which is now playing in DC) and other occasions she's come into contact with Deaf Culture in an article titled Straddling two worlds — deaf and hearing — on and off stage. Read the column here.

Rochester School for the Deaf anniversary

It was on this date (Feb. 3) in 1876 that the first school for the deaf in western New York was founded. It was called the Western New York Institution for Deaf Mutes and in 1920 became the Rochester School for the Deaf. One of the school's early superintendents only allowed students to use finger-spelling speech rather than sign language, which became known as the "Rochester method" according to Peter V. Paul's Language and Deafness.

The fight for a more deaf-friendly game

Al Jazeera takes a look at the sometime contentious relationship between the NFL and the Deaf community here, including the telecast failed even show Rachel Mazique, who signed the National Anthem during the 2012 Super Bowl.

Former Deaf school employee sentenced to 7 years in prison

A former employee at the Maryland School for the Deaf was immediately taken to jail after he was sentenced to seven years in prison yesterday. A jury found Clarence Cepheus Taylor guilty of two charges of child sexual abuse last year. The abuse took place while he was working as a school aide. Here is a video report from WJZ-TV.

A Trip to the Super Bowl

Seattle Seahawks running back Derrick Coleman surprised his two biggest fans with tickets to the Super Bowl. ABC News was there when it happened.


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Seahawk QB: "It give me chills"

"To have (Derrick Coleman) in the huddle, it kind of gives me chills to be honest with you." That's what Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson told the media this week about his teammate. Coleman and Wilson will be playing together in Sunday's Super Bowl. Below is a video of the quarterback's comments.

His role model is playing in Sunday's Super Bowl

image from Gallaudet Athletics 

Adham Talaat was a two-time academic all-American at Gallaudet University. He says he now looks up to Seattle Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman as a role model. Coleman will be playing in the Super Bowl this weekend. Talaat is a "talented underdog who has had to overcome huge obstacles to get where he is. He is severely to profoundly deaf, and he said he is able to hear only very loud noises — like fire alarms — if he is not wearing his hearing aids. The New York Times has more on Talaat's struggle to follow in the footsteps of Coleman and reach the NFL here.

The Week: How Netflix alienated and insulted its deaf subscribers

Frustrated by the weak captioning provided by Netflix? The Week magazine offers a summary of the situation here, pointing out that that the company has limited options because of copyright restraints. Nevertheless, The Week accuses Netflixs of having "bizarrely low standards" when it comes to captioning and that the "inconsistent" service is "loaded with nonsense." A lawsuit filed by the National Association of the Deaf led to an agreement that Netflix would get its act together by the end of this year. But that agreement apparently says more about getting captions on the video than it does about the quality of those captions.

Deaf Actor takes lead in Shakespeare

A Northern Virginia theater is offering Shakespeare--with a deaf actor in the lead role. Ethan Sinnott teaches theater at Gallaudet University and he is staring in the NextStop Theatre Company's production of Richard III. There are two other deaf actors playing roles besides Sinnott. The NextStop production is designed for a hearing audience, but there will be four performances offered entirely in ASL. It starts tomorrow evening and runs through Feb. 23 at the Industrial Strength Theater in Herndon. For more info, click here.

Gallaudet's Endowment

A breakdown of college endowments at hundreds of schools has been released by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute 2013. Based on this information, a Washington Post analysis of Maryland, Virginia and D.C. colleges related to Endowment dollars per enrolled student puts Gallaudet University at $112,799 per student, giving it a ranking of 12 out 30 area institutions. Read more at the Washington Post here.

Former Gally Star working toward majors

image from Gallaudet Athletics 

Tommy Barksdale is chasing his dream in the outfield for the British Columbia Bombers. He's just one of more than 200 players in the California Winter League--but the only one who is profoundly deaf. Barksdale just finished earning his degree from Gallaudet University and now works full-time to make it into the major leagues. Read more about what Barksdale is up against here.

Reality star's brother beaten

Image from Twitter @josiestweet

UK reality show winner Josie Gibson says her deaf brother was beaten yesterday by some men because he was not able to give them directions. It happened in Bristol, England when the Big Brother star was celebrating her birthday. Gibson Tweeted, "Lost all faith in man kind tonight. I went to the toilet and my brother got beaten up for being deaf!!!" Harry is profoundly deaf as a result of contracting meningitis as a child.

Super Bowl Signer has NTID ties

A former NTID student will sign the national anthem at Sunday's Super Bowl. The National Association of the Deaf selected Amber Zion based on an audition tape. Zion graduated from RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf a decade ago. Her husband is also a graduate from the Rochester school. She has appeared off-Broadway, major television programs and commercials. Zion has played leading roles for Deaf West Theater and acted in independent films. Soprano Renee Fleming will sing the National Anthem live on the FOX telecast. Here's a video about her selection.

What is it like to get cochlear implants

An explanation what it what is it like to get cochlear implants in the video below from The Oklahoman. No captions, but you can read the gist of the video here.

NTID students accepted into startup accelerator

A group of student researchers from Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf have been awarded $25,000 and is one of ten teams acceptance into a business startup accelerator called Leap Axlr8r based in San Francisco. It's for companies building on the gesture-based technology called Leap Motion. The $80 device allows users to interact with technology through motion rather than screens, keyboards, mice, and consoles. The technology is playing a critical role in 3D human computer interaction. The students are working on a program to help the deaf and hearing better communicate. They call themselves MotionSavvy and their application is designed to translate a hand shape into a text letter of the alphabet in sign language. Eventually, they hope it will translate sign language into words and sentences. Read more from NTID here.

Should TV clips be captioned? The FCC wants to know

The FCC wants to know whether video excerpts from broadcast TV should be captioned when posted on the Internet. The Commission already requires full television programs to be captioned when it is put on the internet. The FCC wants comments because when Congress authorized it to require TV program producers to caption videos, lawmakers said that, in time, the requirement would move from entire programs to program excerpts. The question before the FCC is whether this is the time to start making this a requirement or not. Comments are due by Monday, January 27. You can read the notice here.

Hospital sued over Terp

A Denver hospital is being sued for failing to provide a patient a sign language interpreter. The Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition is suing Porter Adventist Hospital on behalf of Cynthia Mullen. A rehabilitation facility is also named in the suit. You can read the suit itself here.