New Features From VisionAWARE.org

The Visitors' Forum

The VisionAWARE web site is introducing a new interactive Visitors' Forum. The Forum is a place for our registered visitors to ask questions, share daily living hints, and learn more about available services, helpful devices, new technologies and medical advances. Be sure to register at VisionAWARE.organd participate in our Visitors' Forum.

The VisionAWARE Interview Series

In February, VisionAWARE will introduce a series of interviews with people who are living successfully with vision loss. Each interview will feature an individual who discusses their experiences and shares the ways that they and their family members learned to cope with the everyday challenges of vision loss.

The VisionAWARE Craft Book

Visit VisionAWARE.org to preview a sample craft and purchase Craft Adaptations for Adults with Vision Impairments (Revised 2007), the first publication in our New Independence! series, available for purchase in March as a download from the VisionAWARE web site.

Vision News at VisionAWARE.org

Be sure to visit the Vision News section of our web site, in which we gather and update vision-related news items from around the Web. If you have suggestions for additional resources, tips and hints about eye health, including information about cataracts, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, or glaucoma, please let us know. We want to hear from you!

Reader Feedback

"We had the best time with my mother last night, putting some of your web site hints to work. She was so excited. We got a new phone with white letters, we put up lights in her closet, we put flashlights in her closet and we fixed the stereo with Velcro so she could feel the buttons. My mother was truly so excited and I think it gave a little needed boost when things seemed so bleak."

Thanks so much,
Danny Quinn www.dannyquinn.com, Irish Folk Singer

Agency News and Views

E.A.R.S. for EYES Directory of Self-Help Groups

The E.A.R.S. for EYES Program provides free audiocassette tapes that teach adaptive daily living skills to individuals who are visually impaired. In addition, E.A.R.S. for EYES has recently developed a National Directory of Low Vision Support Groups that provides contact information by state and county. If you know about additional peer support groups that are not listed, be sure to contact E.A.R.S. for EYES info@earsforeyes.org or call 1-800-843-6816 with your organizational information and meeting details.

The Helen Keller National Center (HKNC) for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults

The HKNC is sponsoring a Senior Adult Program I for adults who are hard of hearing and are blind or visually impaired, from April 22-May 4, 2007. Participants will obtain information and training in a range of coping skills related to age-related vision and hearing loss. For more information, contact Dora Carney, Coordinator of Admissions, Helen Keller National Center, 141 Middle Neck Road, Sands Point, NY 11050, TTY: 516- 944-8637; Voice: 516-944-8900 x258; E-mail: hkintake@aol.com.

Lavelle Fund for the Blind, Inc

Lavelle is offering a stipend program for blind students attending selected colleges in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, with preference given to New York City residents. The program aims to make quality undergraduate education affordable for financially needy Tri-State area students who are legally blind and capable of college-level study. For more information, contact Mr. Andrew Fisher, Executive Director, Lavelle Fund for the Blind, Inc., 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 1207, New York, NY 10038; 212-668-9801; E-mail: afisher@lavellefund.org.

National Federation of the Blind-NFB NEWSLINE?

The National Federation of the Blind has recently added television listings to NFB-NEWSLINE?, the nation's largest on-demand news service for the blind. Individuals who are unable to read print due to a physical disability are eligible for this free service. To register or to request more information, call the National Federation of the Blind at 866-504-7300, or visit them online.

Perkins School for the Blind

Perkins School for the Blind Publications has recently published Welcoming Students with Visual Impairment to Your School: A guide for training public school personnel and families about the needs of students with vision loss, funded by a grant from The Gibney Family Foundation. This grant enables Perkins School for the Blind to offer the first 500 copies free, plus $14.49 for shipping and handling costs. Subsequent copies will be available for $70 plus shipping and handling.

Useful Items and New Products

Single-Unit Induction Cooking Burners are available at Target and can be purchased online. Since the surface becomes hot only when and where a pan makes contact, it's not necessary to center the pan precisely on a burner. The cook top responds quickly and accurately when set for high, medium or low temperatures and the controls emit audible beeps. The unit turns off automatically when the cooking time expires. (Source: the Vision Rehabilitation Therapist Listserv visionrehabtherapist@freelists.org)

The Desktop Reading Stand (1-03220-01; $129.00) from American Printing House for the Blind is now made of durable white plastic, and replaces the former wooden stand. Features include adjustable page clamps, a built-in carrying handle, five tilt angles, and a 23 ?" x 18" reading surface.

BibleCourier is an electronic pocket Bible designed specifically for users who are blind or visually impaired, weighing only four ounces and about the size of a small print New Testament (4 ?" x 2 ?" x 1"). It is powered by two AA alkaline batteries, which provide approximately 40 hours of continuous reading. The BibleCourier memory contains the full text of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments plus a User's Guide in cassette or digital format.

Blindness in the News

Bill Would Permit Blind Persons To Hunt In Texas

A Texas lawmaker is aiming to allow the blind to hunt. Texas State Representative Edmund Kuempel has introduced a measure that would allow blind people to hunt any game that sighted people can currently pursue. He hopes it will pass after the legislature reconvenes in January, although he doesn't expect it to become law until 2008. "This opens up the fun of hunting to additional people, and I think that's great," Kuempel said. Under the bill, blind hunters are required to have a sighted hunter with them and can use laser sights and other devices that are currently not allowed.

United States Treasury Is Told To Make Currency Friendlier To Blind People

The government discriminates against blind people by printing money that all looks and feels the same, a federal judge said last month in a ruling that could change the face of American currency. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to develop ways for blind persons to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn't tell officials how to fix the problem, but ordered them to begin working on it. The American Council of the Blind has proposed several options, including printing bills of differing sizes, adding embossed dots or foil to the paper, or using raised ink. "Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations." Judge Robertson said.

The Boy Who Sees With Sound

There was the time a fifth grader thought it would be funny to punch the blind kid and run. So he snuck up on Ben Underwood and hit him in the face. That's when Ben started his clicking thing. "I chased him, clicking until I got to him, then I socked him a good one," says Ben, a skinny 14-year-old. "He didn't reckon on me going after him. But I can hear walls, parked cars, you name it. I'm a master at this game." Completely blind since the age of three, after retinal cancer claimed both eyes (he now wears two prostheses), Ben has learned to perceive and locate objects by making a steady stream of sounds with his tongue, then listening for echoes as they bounce off the surfaces around him. The technique is called echolocation, and many species, most notably bats and dolphins, use it to get around. You can read more about Ben here.

Billionaire Puts Elbow Through Priceless Picasso

This article in the UK's Independent, about billionaire casino owner Steve Wynn, who has retinitis pigmentosa, demonstrates (very clearly and graphically) the effects of a severely reduced peripheral visual field upon everyday functioning:

Steve Wynn has sharp elbows. How else would he have risen to become one of the most successful — and wealthy — casino moguls in the world with his newest property, simply called the Wynn, reigning as the most luxurious hotel on the Las Vegas strip? Should you bump into him, however, it's best to avoid all mention of arms, elbows and other limbs. If Mr. Wynn is a little sensitive on the subject, it may have something to do with an incident that occurred in his office at the Wynn earlier this month. It involves a priceless Picasso and a large hole. The Picasso in question is Le Reve, the 1932 portrait that is among Picasso's best-known masterpieces. Mr. Wynn bought the picture in 1997 from another collector for $48.4 million and recently agreed to sell it to a hedge fund billionaire, Steven Cohen, for $139 million. You can read more about Steve Wynn's dramatic accident here .

Love Is Blind In Pitch-Black Restaurant

Love is blind — but in this case, so were the lovers, the waiters and all other diners at the "blind date" in the dark. Held in a banquet hall at a Los Angeles hotel, this culinary and sensory event offers obscurity, anonymity and gourmet food — but is not recommended for anyone afraid of the dark. Diners at the once-a-week restaurant called "Opaque" are led into a pitch-black dining room by blind waiters who act as their guides for the evening. The concept has already proven popular among Europeans in cities such as Berlin, Paris, Hamburg and Zurich, and the general reaction has been enthusiastic, said Ben Uphues, the event's Los Angeles producer. You can read more about this specialized dining experience here.