Bison in NCAA Tourney!

The Gallaudet University women's basketball team is in the NCAA Division III tournament! The Bison received an At-Large bid to the despite losing the conference title to Keuka College over the weekend. Gallaudet will play Juniata College (21-6) in the first round at the team's faculty in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania this Friday. St. Vincent College will play Greensboro College starting at 5:30pm, then Juniata and Gallaudet will tip off when the first game is completed.

43 of the 64 teams earned automatic qualification to the women's basketball tourney. The first and second round competition takes place March 4th and 5th at 16 sites around the country. Second-round winners will advance to one of four sectional sites March 11-12. Winners of the four sectional games will advance to the national semifinals March 18. The finals take place at Illinois Wesleyan University's Shirk Center on March 19.

Gallaudet ended its regular season this weekend by splitting two games. The Bison beat SUNYIT (State University of New York Institute of Technology) by a score of 53-44, but lost to Keuka College in the league championship game yesterday by a score of 50-46. The Bison were winning by a double-digit margin but saw their lead melt away, thanks to a 14-0 run at the end of the game by the Keuka College Storm. That gave the Storm the conference title and automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Keuka ends the season with a 24-2 record while Gallaudet was 24-3 on the year.

You can see the brackets here.

Amazing Race Results

Luke and Margie are in 5th place after 2 episodes of The Amazing Race. They were in 7th place at the end of the first episode. After almost winning during season 14, the deaf son and his mother are back again (along with 11 other former teams who didn’t win). Episode 2 was titled I Never Looked So Foolish in My Whole Entire Life which is something one contestant said after teams were made to dress up as Kangaroos (they were in Australia). Amanda and Kris (who were dating) were eliminated at the end of the 2nd episode. See the entire first episode here.

Captioning Complaints

There are several ways to file a captioning complaint about a broadcast. The FCC requests that you submit written complaints directly to your cable or satellite TV service, or the TV station. If you file your complaint with the FCC, the FCC will forward the complaint. Written complaints must be filed within 60 days of the captioning problem. The service will have 30 days to respond to the complaint. If they fail to respond within 30 days, or if the matter is unresolved, you can send your complaint to the FCC. There is an on-line complaint form here. You can also email complaints to the FCC’s Consumer Center at fccinfo@fcc.gov or by fax at 1-866-418-0232. If you wish to write through regular mail, send your complaint to:

Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Inquiries and Complaints Division
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20554

You'll want to include your contact information, the television channel number, call sign, and network, the location of the TV station, the date and time when you experienced the captioning problem, the name of the program or show and a detailed description of the captioning problem.

An FCC fact sheet with more detail is located here.

The Sport He Loves

A Rochester, NY paper looks at how a deaf referee approaches the game of basketball in the slide show below. Or you can read the story here.

Celebrity Help in Haiti

Miley Cyrus is visiting Haiti in support of the Starkey Hearing Foundation. She's helping the hearing aid group to make molds of children's ears, so that custom hearing aids can be made at Starkey headquarters in Minnesota. The 'Hannah Montana' star had previously donated the proceeds from one of her singles to Haiti relief efforts.

Terps at Disney

Disneyland will hold its 22nd Annual Deaf Awareness Day a week from today. The Orange County Deaf Equal Access Foundation will provide volunteer interpreters at some shows and other locations around the park. The resort regularly provides interpreting services a couple of days a week.

The Netflix Problem

Only 30% of Netflix streaming content is captioned. That's about 3500 TV episodes and movies. And even these can be viewed on only a limited number of devices. Netflix says that percentage should rise to 80% by the end of the summer. However, some critics say the portion of the Netflix library is much smaller than the company claims and that the rate at which Netflix is going, it will be years before the project is complete. You can see the results of one tally here.

Two Wins Away!

The women's basketball team at Gallaudet could win their conference title this weekend. They host the North Eastern Athletic Conference tournament as its top seed. Two wins this weekend would not only capture the NEAC championship, but probably put the them in the NCAA Tournament. The 23-2 Bison are led by senior Easter Faafiti who has been named NEAC Student-Athlete of the Week a record five times this season. She is averaging 21.3 points per game, 13.4 rebounds and 4 steals.

Lawsuit Over New Implant

A three week trial in Denver has led a jury to award a French company $5.9 million over a new cochlear implant. The jury decided Boulder-based Otologics misappropriated trade secrets from SA Neurtelec. Otologics tried to buy SA Neutelec for $30 million. When the offer was rejected, the firm hired some of the top talent at SA Neurelec who have developed an implant that is entirely implanted.

School May Close

The Rochester School for the Deaf could be shut down in the next round of state budget cuts. Deaf and hard of hearing students from 45 New York school districts attend, but the governor's proposed budget would leave local school officials with the decision as to whether to mainstream students who live in the district or pay to send them to a school such as the Rochester School for the Deaf.

Service Animals in Washington State

Lawmakers in Washington State are considering a bill that would require restaurants, bars and grocery stores to treat trained dogs and miniature horses as the only service animals that may assisting disabled customers under ADA law. Stores could refuse access to just about any other service animal. The legislation is in the House now as bill 1728. Read the proposed law and follow its progress here.

When Hand-waving Makes for Good Scientific Discussion

Ever wonder what sign language interpreters do when they run across technical and scientific terms in presentations? There's an article in New Scientist about inventing signs on the fly. Ferris Jabr wrote the piece this week while attending the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, D.C. Read the article here.

Meeting with Police

Portland's deaf community will have a chance to discuss their safety concerns with the city's police department this evening. The goal of the meeting is to create a better understanding through more open communication. The forum is set for 6pm at the Deering Masonic Lodge on Bishop Street.

Miss Capital City

A deaf student has won LSU's Miss Capital City Pageant. Andrea Sonnier is an senior majoring in English who will now prepare for the Miss Louisiana Pageant in June. If she wins, she will move on to take part in Miss America 2011. She plans to attend Gallaudet University in the fall and work on a master's in deaf education.

DEAFinitely

Teaching kids and adults to play hockey. Read about a program at Holy Cross called DEAFinately here.

Divided Education

One child learns ASL while the education of another is impacted by his cochlear implant. Yet both students are attending Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind. Read more in an article at The Salt Lake Tribune by clicking here.

NFL: No to Charity Event

The NFL refused to allow its players to take part in a fund-raiser for hearing aids. The Raise your Hand for Africa Charity Tournament at the the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas was intended to bring together Hollywood celebrities, NFL superstars and other poker pros this past weekend for a special Texas Hold’em charity event. The money went to the Starkey Hearing Foundation so it could purchase hearing aids for children in Africa. But the league decided to take a tough stance against gambling, forbidding players from joining poker tournaments, even ones that are being held for charity. The 25 NFL players watched from the sidelines and cheered players as best they could.

Sentencing Delayed

The man once selected as Deaf Person of the Year by Deaf Life magazine will be sentenced for fraud in June. John Yeh was originally going to find out how much jail time he would get in just a matter of days, but the judge in the case has delayed sentencing. He plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud as part of a deaf service agency in Maryland. He, and his brother Joseph Yeh, owned Rockville-based Viable. They admitted trying to defraud the FCC's Video Relay Service program by paying people to make fake calls. They submitted about $55 million in claims to the federal agency, asking for reimbursement. Other charges were dropped in return for the guilty pleas. The brothers face 20 year prison sentences and a possible fine of a quarter of a million dollars. 24 other people from around the country also faced charges. At least 12 plead guilty. New York's Snap!VRS agreed to aquire Viable, pending the outcome of the investigations and prosecutions.

The Deaf Leading the Deaf-Blind

Read about the San Diego office of the Helen Keller National Center here.

Theater Director Resigns

Aaron Kubey is leaving his post as director of the National Theatre of the Deaf. Kubey says he plans to leave June 30th to "pursue new endeavors." He has held the position for more than three years. The organization celebrates its 45th anniversary next year, having endured a financial scandal a few years ago and a relocation to West Hartford, Connecticut at the American School for the Deaf.