Durward K. McDaniel, born November 27, 1915, died Sept. 6, 1994 of a heart attack at his home in Austin, Texas. McDaniel was a founding member of the American Council of the Blind, serving as its first national representative from 1968 to 1981. He served as legal counsel for the Randolph-Sheppard Vendors of America, an affiliate of the American Council of the Blind. For a time, he was the editor of "The Braille Forum," and he chaired the Affiliated Leadership League of and for the Blind of America.

McDaniel was born in Oklahoma, and lost his sight at the age of 14 as the result of an oil field accident. He attended the Oklahoma School for the Blind, the University of Oklahoma and its law school. He opened a law office in Oklahoma City and qualified to practice before the Supreme Court. In 1949, he co-founded the Oklahoma League for the Blind, and served as president of the Oklahoma Council of the Blind from 1947 to 1950. He moved to Washington in 1968 to become ACB's first national representative and held that position until he retired in 1981. He was an expert on the Randolph-Sheppard vending program, and served as legal counsel for RSVA starting in 1981.

McDaniel was a founding member of the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities. He was also an ACB officer, once serving as second vice president. He received the Migel Medal Layperson Award in 1991. In an article appearing in the January-February 1992 issue of "The Braille Forum," Jansen Noyes Jr., honorary chairman of AFB's board of trustees, said McDaniel "will be a leader among us so long as he shall live."

"As many of you know," McDaniel said at that time, "I didn't do all those things by myself. Jansen acknowledged {my wife} Aileen's participation in all this, and that goes on even now. I'll say this about the Migel Medal. I will cherish it, but I do believe whatever monument there may be to what I've done in these years will be the results of the standing and esteem that blind people are held in, and to some extent, the improvement of their economic condition. Of course, no one person can do it all. But the momentum is going in favor of blind people, and I'm pleased with that. I know that ACB will be in the forefront of all those changes that will come about."

When hearing the description of the Migel Medal -- an angel carrying a lighted torch on one side, and the inscription "For outstanding services to the blind" on the other side -- McDaniel said, "I've never had the medal described to me before. I expect to get some ribbing from my friends about the angel on here." And he probably did "get some ribbing." Nevertheless, he continued to work for the rights of blind people. According to an article by Floyd Qualls in the March 1978 issue of "The Braille Forum," "McDaniel was one of the leading exponents of the provision in the Wagner-O'Day Act mandating the 75/25 percent ratio of blind to sighted workers in workshops. He worked diligently for the Fully Insured Rule of Title II of the Social Security Act. This qualified some 30,000 blind persons for benefits. Recognizing that blind people have many problems in common with other minorities, and that prospects for achieving full civil rights protections would be greatly enhanced by working in coalition with other civil rights organizations, he sought and obtained admission of the American Council of the Blind into the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. ACB was the first disability membership organization admitted to participation in the leadership conference.

"... Durward is a man of ideas, a man of action, and a man of tireless energy. Few names are better known among the blind in this country than that of Durward McDaniel. He is known for his deeds, his principles, and his concern for his fellow blind. ... I have known and worked with Durward for many years. He is a leader among leaders, yet he has not lost the common touch."

Durward is survived by his wife Aileen and a daughter Ruth.

In its fall board meeting, ACB's board of directors established a memorial fund in Durward's honor. Proceeds from the fund will be used for membership enhancement and retention activities. As many who remember Durward are well aware, he was deeply interested in membership growth and retention. Additional information about the fund will be available in an upcoming issue of "The Braille Forum." The January 1995 issue of "The Braille Forum" will be dedicated to the memory of Durward McDaniel. We are currently soliciting contributions from "Forum" readers and others who knew Durward and would like to provide us with written information about how his life affected them. Information may be submitted in print, braille or computer disk (ASCII, WordPerfect 5.1 or WordPerfect 6.0 formats preferred), and must be mailed no later than December 3, 1994. All submissions will include the author's name. Send information to Durward K. McDaniel Memorial, 1155 15th St. NW, Suite 720, Washington, DC 20005. Information may be uploaded to ACB ON-LINE by calling (202) 331-1058. Those with internet connections may send their submissions to [email protected] with a message subject Durward McDaniel Memorial.

By the time you read this issue of "The Braille Forum," you will have heard that Durward K. McDaniel died on September 6, 1994. We have lost a real leader in the fight for civil rights for blind and disabled people in this country. I don't know of anyone who worked harder for disabled people than Durward.

Durward was an idea person; he would review his idea with others, to see "if it flies," as he would say, then he would bring together the people who could make it happen. He never gave up on people or an idea that he thought would help blind people.

He was well-versed in legislation that affected blind Americans. As an attorney, he advised many people for many years after his retirement of their rights under the law. After retiring from ACB, he represented people who had disputes with both federal and state agencies at his expense. Durward consistently insisted that people be treated fairly under the laws that were there to serve them.

One of Durward's interests was the Randolph-Sheppard program. He worked very hard to help vendors working under this program. He was involved in establishing the amendments to the Randolph- Sheppard Act, and was an outstanding supporter and friend to vendors everywhere and the programs that affect their lives.

Needless to say, there are many more things I would like to say about Durward. However, I am sure there will be many more articles written about him. I personally have lost a great friend. I didn't know him as long as many of you who read the "Forum." He was my sounding board and I respected his opinion. However, I can tell you we didn't always agree on issues, but we both accepted that and never stopped working together.

Durward once told me, and not so long ago, that when he died he didn't want any type of services held for him. He said he didn't want people to stop work to attend any type of service. One of the best ways for us to honor Durward is to keep working to ensure that the civil rights of blind and visually impaired people are upheld, thereby enabling those people to be treated like the first-class citizens they are.

CAPTION ACB President LeRoy Saunders speaks with Enrique Servando Sanchez at the convention. All photos copyright 1994 by Natalie Sigler-Westbury

It is often said, but with limited accuracy, that the pace of life and traffic slow to a crawl in August as Congress and thousands of other people leave the area for summer vacation. If that was ever the case, it was not this year and it certainly was not in the ACB national office, where analyzing, strategizing, planning and advocating went forward vigorously concerning such subjects as telecommunications and assistive technology, rehabilitation services, free matter and other postal services, health care and health insurance reform, student services and expansion on employment opportunities for blind people. Included in these activities was membership services coordinator Jennifer Sutton's participation in the national convention of the Association for Higher Education and the Disabled, an organization whose programs and services can be extremely important to blind students and the members of the National Alliance of Blind Students.

Among the dignitaries visiting the ACB national office recently was Judy Peters, the new president and chief executive officer of National Industries for the Blind. Ms. Peters, who came into her new position most recently from private industry, requested our input on a variety of subjects and indicated that she would like to see NIB go in a variety of new directions, all of which would hopefully result in more employment of blind people. We are looking forward to working with Peters and we wish her well as she takes over the direction of an agency which has a tremendous impact on the lives of thousands of blind people.

It is essential for an organization to examine its operations periodically and to make long-range plans if it intends to remain relevant to its members or those to whom it provides services. With this in mind, the president of the American Council of the Blind appointed a long-range planning committee several months ago and during recent weeks the members of the staff met with the members of that committee in a series of long and very productive meetings. Discussions during those meetings emphasized that ACB must be willing to examine its historic positions, practices, policies, assumptions and relationships if it is to meet the needs of its members and others throughout the remainder of the 1990s and into the next century.

Outdoor rallies in the Washington area can be somewhat "humdrum" affairs if they involve exotic issues which do not affect many people, but that was not the case recently when ACB's director of governmental affairs Paul Schroeder and I took part in the health care rally held outside the impressive Carpenters' Union Hall on Capitol Hill and sponsored by Families USA (formerly known as the Villars Foundation). Although Mrs. Hillary Clinton expressed a preference for health care bills that were then being endorsed by President Clinton and his administration, the thrust of the rally, which was attended by hundreds of able-bodied and disabled people alike, was that universal and adequate health care must be made available to prevent the types of personal and financial calamities that were summarized by several other speakers.

During a typical month the ACB national office receives and answers dozens of calls requesting legal or technical assistance in connection with individual or local problems relating to blindness. In a high percentage of cases it is possible to empower the caller to serve as his or her own advocate and in many other cases we provide more direct advocacy assistance. Recently, however, attorney Charles Goldman, with whom we sometimes collaborate on a limited basis, and I had the pleasure of figuratively seeing and hearing the cavalry in the form of the U.S. government come galloping over the hill to help rescue a blind person who has been involved in lengthy litigation for years in an effort to undo the effects of an improperly administered civil service examination. More specifically, Mr. Goldman and I initially consulted with the ACB member's attorney regarding several technical points and then agreed that the case involved an issue that was so broad that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should be urged to intervene on the side of the plaintiff. Contacts were made with both the Justice Department and EEOC, and, after further discussion, the EEOC announced just a few days ago that it would intervene on our side in an effort to undo the damage done. And what was the problem in the first place? A few years ago the plaintiff, an active ACB member who works for the city of New York, took an important civil service examination which was read to him by a reader who, among other things, failed to read the punctuation of a key sentence and who, while not reading to him, conversed loudly with another person nearby. We will keep you informed as to the progress of this case as it continues through the courts in New York.

Everyone in the ACB national office was saddened recently by the sudden death of Durward McDaniel, a founding member of the American Council of the Blind and its national representative from 1968 to 1981. Memorial articles in this and future issues will summarize the enormously important role which this fine man played in improving the well- being of blind and other disabled people in the United States during his long and productive life. The status of blind and other disabled people in this country is definitely better as a result of Durward's having walked and worked among us.

CAPTION ACB National Representative Oral O. Miller smiles for the camera.

The 1994 convention of the American Council of the Blind was the largest in the council's history, according to ACB Assistant Treasurer James R. Olsen. Slightly less than 1,800 people were registered. The convention was bigger in more ways than that, however. ACB offered more scholarships this year than at any time in its history. And for the first time, the Regional Bell Operating Companies provided $15,000 to assist local affiliates in sponsoring scholarship winners from their state. There were more exhibits than in the past as well, according to Michael Byington, the convention's exhibit coordinator.

This year's convention began with the larger-than-life fervor that has become part of the Sunday night opening ceremony tradition. M.J. Schmitt, president of the Illinois Council of the Blind, welcomed ACB members to the convention, recalling that ACB had hosted a convention in Chicago 20 years earlier. "We had good-news years and bad-news years after that," she recalled. "I'm excited that you're here this year and prouder than ever to belong to ACB." Schmitt introduced Albert Anderson, president of the American Council of the Blind of Metropolitan Chicago. "I did succeed in ordering ideal weather for today," Anderson quipped. "I don't know whether I can keep that up for the entire week, but I'll try."

ACB President LeRoy F. Saunders gave his report to the convention concerning his activities and ACB's progress throughout the year. (See "President's Message," August 1994.)

Following his remarks, President Saunders introduced Sharon Keeran, a member of ACB's awards committee, and Billie Jean Hill, chair of the board of publications, who each presented awards. (See "ACB Honors 1994 Award Winners," September 1994.)

Following the presentation of the awards, Saunders presented a new affiliate charter to Nelson Malbone, president of the Virginia Association of the Blind. "We worked hard for this," Malbone said, "and we're going to continue to work hard. We have 10 Virginians here, and they're proud to be here."

ACB Assistant Treasurer James R. Olsen presented Life Membership awards to Kristal Hagemoser Platt of Nebraska, ACB's youngest life member. Darryl Lauer of Missouri received a Life Membership as a gift from the members of the Missouri Council of the Blind. Other life memberships given later in the week included one for Sandy Sanderson, president of the Alaska Independent Blind, presented to him by his affiliate in memory of Louise Rude, and one to Darryl Nather, also a member of the Alaska Independent Blind, presented to him as a gift from his affiliate.

The Sunday session adjourned with a roll call of state delegates.

MONDAY:

The Monday session began with music to commemorate Independence Day, followed by a Credentials Committee report from committee chairman Carl McCoy. Conventioners were welcomed to Chicago by Larry Gorski, who represented Mayor Richard Daily. He read a proclamation declaring the week of July 2 through 9 as American Council of the Blind Week in Chicago.

The first speaker of the day was Enrique Servando Sanchez, Director General of Organizaci�n Nacional de Ciegos Espa�oles (ONCE). Sanchez talked about programs and services available to blind people in Spain, addressing the age-old problem of limited resources and great demand. He said resources to serve the blind in Spain are increasingly difficult to obtain because of the country's economic indebtedness. However, because of the organization's close connection to the Spanish lottery, its resources enable it to assist groups in addition to those who are blind.

"We've encountered many difficulties as a result of the political state of affairs in our country," he explained. "But our lottery has been a main source of financing our social services. It's been a great part of the employment opportunities for blind people in Spain."

The convention turned its attention to domestic concerns following Sanchez's remarks. Frank Kurt Cylke, director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, described the process by which a book is selected and included in the library's collection. He said at present, the library offers 250,000 titles in about 15 million copies. The difficulty in book selection comes when NLS's selection committee must decide which books will be included of the 35,000 to 40,000 new books and reprints issued each year.

He said several questions have to be answered before a book can become part of the collection. Such questions include: What is the public interested in? Does the book lend itself to reproduction? Is it authentic? Is it a classic? He predicted that as more computer disks are used by people with voice or braille output, the number of reference books will increase. NLS currently does not provide books on computer disk, nor did Cylke indicate that it would do so any time soon.

"You may not know it if you don't speak another language," he said, "but we have books in 83 languages. The general languages available are French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Laotian, and Vietnamese. The latter two are becoming of significant interest in the last five to seven years."

He said the hard thing to do is balance the collection. "The Library of Congress library program for the blind can certainly not say that we are a major library," he said. "But we are a great library because it is the only library that exists and it does have this broad expanse of books. It will be very difficult for us to balance the collection in a way that any single individual in this room would like. It's a very tough job that the librarians face when they build a collection. I think, however, over all, they're doing a fairly reasonable job."

In a question and answer session, Cylke refuted claims by some regional librarians and reader advisers that older books are not available in the NLS system. "I'm glad I don't know what state you're from," he replied. "And I'd rather not know. I'm going to say that the response to your question (to your librarian) in 99.9 cases is totally inaccurate. A book never gets out of the system. For example, there are three master collections of braille materials from braille volume number one to date, absolutely comprehensive. And so there are at least three copies of every braille book that has ever been produced. And the answer for the audio book is there's probably 300 copies of every title."

Cylke said old recorded or brailled versions of tax forms might be discarded. "But if you're talking about the standard fiction or the standard non-fiction," he said, "it's absolutely available." He encouraged those who are told that books are no longer available to ask to speak to the library director. "If the director tells you that, give us a call on the 800 number and we'll take care of it. I hope I don't start a stampede, but when we get calls like that we try to respond positively and get it to you by Federal Express probably the next day before noon."

Asked whether NLS would abandon its use of flexible disc recordings, Cylke said he was "not prepared to say today that we're going to stop using phonograph records." He indicated that a recent audit had encouraged NLS to move toward a cassette-based technology. "It's being looked at and that may occur within the next year or so. It would not occur without coming here and talking to the people in your organization and the people in other organizations."

In response to a question about how NLS is affected by electronic books currently available on the Internet, Cylke suggested that in the long term, blind readers may well have their materials available in the public sector using commercial equipment and having full text materials. "That's not tomorrow; it's not even 10 years from now. It may be 50 or 100 years from now, however, that there would be no Library of Congress program (for the blind) and I would think at that point, everybody who was using the program would applaud it. It would mean that you're using exactly the same materials available to everyone in the sighted world."

From books, the group turned its attention to television, and specifically to audio described television. Laura Oftedahl, director of development for WGBH-TV's Descriptive Video Service in Boston, updated convention attendees on the progress of described video from WGBH's perspective.

She said Ken Burns' "Baseball" series which recently aired on public television became the first audio described program where the description was paid for by the same corporation that underwrote the series -- in this case, General Motors. "We hope there will be many more corporations that follow in their footsteps," Oftedahl said.

She said DVS is now available on 100 stations. The 100th station to sign on to DVS was a public television station near Knoxville, Tenn. "I'm glad to announce that ACB now has a permanent seat on the national advisory board of DVS," she said. "Your president, LeRoy Saunders, is on our DVS advisory board. So if you have comments or feedback of any kind that we need to address, please get them to President Saunders." She said those interested in DVS could call toll-free (800) 333-1203 to provide feedback and listen to additional information about the service. The DVS hotline is being sponsored by TeleSensory Corporation. She said the catalog now includes some 85 titles.

"There are now over 400 libraries around the country that have added DVS home videos to their collections," Oftedahl said. "Many of you have worked hard to get those videos in your library, and we thank you for that. If your library doesn't have them, we suggest that you go and ask for them and tell them about DVS. Bring an information packet that we have available for libraries to your library." She said DVS had signed a rental deal with a regional video rental chain in New England. "They've recently purchased videos for 54 stores."

While ACB members can hear DVS descriptions of nature films, the convention heard a firsthand description of nature close up from ACB member Bud Keith. Keith, who recently returned from an African safari adventure, described several encounters with more exotic animals in the various places he visited. One such stop included a visit to a small farm outside Nairobi where a family endowment is trying to save a rare species of giraffe. "One of the things they have there is a flight of stairs up to a platform and a little bucket full of nibblies like you might feed to a guide dog to which live full-grown giraffes are attracted. So just walking up to the rail here's this big fuzzy muzzle sticking itself in front of me looking for nibbles.

"His head was about 18 feet above the ground," Keith recalled. "So there's not many instances where a blind person can reach that high. His head was basically the shape of a horse, and his muzzle was like a horse's muzzle but much, much bigger. The thing that was so interesting was that while I was trying to touch his muzzle, his tongue was licking my elbow. I've never seen such a long tongue in my life."

Another visit to a compound where people seek to preserve orphaned wild life resulted in a close-up examination of a rhinoceros. "I must say I felt quite a bit of trepidation when we walked into the paddock," he said. "The rhino was eating and was totally oblivious to me, thank goodness. The top of her back came up about mid-chest on me. I was told she would grow another foot or foot and a half before she's mature. From her rump to her nose was close to 10 feet. I tried to stand, reach across to touch either side of her rib cage, and it was already beyond what I could reach. I just never realized those animals were quite so massive.

"Her hide was totally hairless," he said, "and it felt like a dried out old baseball glove -- very hard. I'm sure she could probably feel a little bit, but I don't know how. Along her flank is a very very hard, almost calloused projection of skin that comes up alongside her stomach. You can stick your hands back in there, and it was softer and warmer. The trainer said it was a place where she liked to be tickled. When I did that, you could sense she was showing a little interest in something other than her food bag."

Keith said when the food was gone, he made a relatively quick exit in order to prevent being accidentally stepped on by the rhino as she moved about.

He also visited a native African compound generally off limits to the public. The compound was composed mainly of a 50-foot wide circle of thorn branches designed to keep out wild animals at night and shelter cattle. "The overwhelming impact when one first got there was the smell of manure," he remembered. "The two huts that were in the compound were both made mainly out of manure and mud that is mixed together and packed over a framework of wood. The hut is only about four feet tall with a smoke hole at the top and a doorway at the side. I was invited in; I had to almost get on my hands and knees to get in. The one word that would describe the interior of that hut was flies.

"I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I was almost overwhelmed by the sound of flies; I just couldn't brush them off myself fast enough," he said. "It's very sobering to realize that that type of living experience is something that many people in the world take as just the way things are"

He described listening to roaring lions from inside his tent at 2 in the morning. He was also relatively close to a lion kill on one occasion where he could actually hear the female lion panting as she lay down to catch her breath after having killed a wildebeest.

He expressed his appreciation for the African people, praising their openness and initiative. He said they will often barter with tourists, "but I have to say in the entire time I was there I never once saw any begging; it's just a concept that they don't have."

He recalled losing his suitcase early on in the trip and recognizing how unimportant some of the things he had packed had been. "A month after I had gotten home I got a letter from the hotel stating that they had my suitcase. I got the suitcase back in June; it had been unlocked the entire time; not a single thing was missing. So in addition to the friendliness and hospitality of the African people, I'm terribly impressed with their honesty."

TUESDAY:

The Tuesday session began with an address by Robert F. Harris, vice president for legislative affairs for the U.S. Post Office. He said he had come to the convention to talk about what the post office is doing and to listen to the concerns of ACB members. He said the post office has restructured its management team. He defended its record by suggesting that some of its nearly 1 million employees "are going to make mistakes and do things that don't make much sense to you, and in the final analysis, don't make sense to us either."

He said the post office faces a variety of challenges including competition, rising employee costs, increased operating expenses and increased pressure from customers to deliver mail in a timely manner. On the subject of free matter mail for the blind, Harris said, "we do not in any instance intend to shirk or forego that particular commitment." He said remaining committed to the free matter mail privilege is "the right thing to do."

He said America's increasing reliance on technology doesn't mean the death of the post office. Just as radio did not destroy the newspaper industry, and just as television forced radio to change but did not destroy it, so electronic mail, according to Harris, will force the post office to change, but does not spell its end. "The death of the postal service was first predicted about 157 years ago because of the telegraph," Harris said. "Yet today, we are delivering 171 billion pieces of mail a year -- more than ever before in our history."

While Harris's remarks were well-received, he was forced to deal with some politely asked but hard questions during a question-and-answer session following his address. In response to a complaint about long delays in bulk mail deliveries, Harris said a management restructuring had occurred that should help solve the problem or at least give customers a single point of contact in a given region. Other complaints included delays in mailing of braille materials. Harris minimized concerns about abuse by blind people of the free matter privilege. "I haven't received any indication that the abuse level is high enough to warrant what we would consider a full-scale investigation by our inspection service."

Harris committed to assisting ACB National Representative Oral O. Miller in setting up an appointment with Postmaster General Marvin Runyon or other high-ranking postal officials to discuss the free matter privilege and how it can be more uniformly and more appropriately enforced throughout the nation.

From free matter mailing of recorded books and other material, conventioners turned their focus to those who record those books. Roy Avers, a talking book narrator at the American Printing House for the Blind, talked about his experiences as a narrator and his interaction with those who read books he's narrated. Those who read cassette books could immediately identify with Avers who upon taking the microphone simply said, "This book contains up to four sides per cassette." Once the laughter died down, he began his remarks in earnest.

He characterized his time at the microphone as "a conversation with you folks" rather than an address. "There is and has been one highlight of my career as a talking book narrator," Avers said. "For 25 years, I have been talking with talking book readers by whatever means possible. When I get a letter from one of you readers, ... when I get a phone call, that is a highlight."

He joked with his listeners about his appearance. "I think you probably have a vision of me -- an idea of me, and I think it wouldn't do to change that. However, I'm going to." He recalled one incident in which a female fan assured him, "I go to bed more with you than I do with my husband," referring, of course, to times when she left her talking book machine on while falling asleep.

Avers recalled how his career as a narrator began. It started while he was on business in Louisville, Ky., as a consultant. He happened to see a story about Recording for the Blind. "I said that sounds like something I'd be interested in doing. I talked to the people and began reading textbooks. That's a tremendous program and I was very happy to be part of it, but they weren't happy to have me as part of them. The reason is, I just couldn't leave well enough alone. I couldn't take a textbook and read it straight. I had to do something with it."

He said he once read an English literature textbook "and I had a lot of fun with it." RFB staff members encouraged him to go to the printing house to audition for its talking book program. "I auditioned, and I got in," he recalled.

Avers met his wife several years ago when she worked as a monitor for the talking book program at APH. He said one of the most boring books he's narrated is "The WordPerfect Bible." "The most difficult book I ever read was one by a very famous gentleman now dead named Thomas Jefferson," Avers recalled. "It was entitled 'The Complete Writings of Thomas Jefferson,' and that's exactly what it was. It was difficult because Thomas Jefferson ... wrote in five different languages, all of which appeared in this book --German, French, Spanish, English (which is a foreign language to me), Latin, and Greek. The Greek was written in the Greek alphabet. All of this had to be recorded in English; I found it to be extremely difficult."

He said these days he's mainly recording fiction; "that and 'Newsweek,' which may be fiction too sometimes."

Asked whether he found reading material which included explicit descriptions of sex difficult to narrate, he simply replied "I love it," an answer that brought him loud applause. While he found it difficult to name a favorite book, he said his favorite authors include Pat Conroy, author of "Prince of Tides."

Following Avers's remarks, the convention heard from Dr. Fay S. Baggiano, associate administrator for consumer relations with the Health Care Finance Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington.

She said throughout the last decade, customers have been ignored from the Social Security and Medicaid side. "We looked more at dollars and how they were spent and how we can not tell people about our programs and get them involved, and thank goodness, that is changing."

She said in recent months, focus groups have been employed to determine how the Medicare/Medicaid programs could be improved. "The one thing that came out of those focus groups that is overwhelming is the incredible confusion that beneficiaries feel about our program and how we provide services to them," she said.

Baggiano called for health care reform that included universal coverage, including complete coverage of people with pre-existing conditions, and cost controls. "Universal coverage is at risk," she admitted, "and so all the other goals are at risk."

She said the now-dead Clinton health plan would call for expanded community care services which would include people with severe disabilities. "One of your concerns that we are working on is coverage for vision-related health care services, particularly the rehabilitative services for the blind and visually impaired," she said. "I think there probably needs to be more discussion with you and other groups about how we get more ophthalmologists involved to show them that it is to their advantage as well as to the advantage of their patients to provide these services in their offices in the outpatient settings. This is looking toward providing holistic care rather than beneficiaries having to go different places for every service they receive."

Baggiano said for the first time in HCFA's history, the agency has provided cassette editions of its various publications. She said the publications are available through regional libraries for the blind. Publications include "The Guide to Health Insurance for People With Medicare," "The Medicare Handbook," and "Medicare Coverage of Kidney Dialysis and Kidney Transplant."

"We were publishing certain information in braille, but we found very few requests or interest," Baggiano explained. "We don't know if that's because the way it was presented, if people didn't know it existed,that's the type of thing that I need to know from you and from your advocacy groups that are working with you. We know that a majority of our Medicare beneficiaries can't read braille, so we have to find alternatives that are effective for everyone."

She said the Health Care Finance Administration has contracted with a company to standardize the computer systems used among the various Medicare contractors so contractors and the HCFA can communicate more easily with one another. "As a part of that, we're trying to go to a 1-800 Medicare line that would allow you to dial 1-800 Medicare and get a voice response or a person. It would be a national line that could answer all questions. We're looking at one year from now for putting that pilot into place if we can get all the approvals on that."

In response to a question as to why the white cane isn't covered as part of durable medical equipment, Baggiano said "I don't know why they haven't been covered in the past; I know that we are very close and looking very hard especially at the white long cane to allow coverage of those as durable medical equipment."

ACB members next turned their attention to the National Association of Parents of the Visually Impaired. Kevin O'Connor, president of NAPVI, called for greater cooperation and interaction between ACB and NAPVI. He talked about various types of people and why they either cooperate or resist one another. He said when he learned that his son is visually impaired, he rapidly figured out "which doctors treated eyeballs and which doctors treated little boys who couldn't see good. What we have discovered, whether they are professionals or parents, neighbors or friends, family, other children, or other adults, is that we find people who are supportive of us and who are helpful to us. They become the people we catch in our net and we network with them."

He said NAPVI is dedicated to helping parents get through the maze of government, education, how to connect with other groups that can help their children at different stages in the life cycle, and work with other people successfully. "We can fight with people all we want, but it isn't going to get our kids what they need. Our goal is to work with families and educate them quickly to figure out what we can do to help."

He said NAPVI seeks to help see things from the parents' point of view. "Sometimes the very real experts are the children," O'Connor said. "We want to see that those families and those children are treated with the same respect that everyone deserves. When we can accomplish that as a society, then we've truly given them an open door that they can walk into many possibilities."

Those interested in contacting the National Association of Parents of the Visually Impaired may call toll-free (800) 562-6265. The final speaker for

the Tuesday session was Dr. Alfred Rosenbloom, director of low vision services at the Chicago Lighthouse for People Who Are Blind and Visually Impaired. He expressed his pleasure at being part of the convention "and to acknowledge your organization as the largest of its kind in the world and with such significant services to persons with visual impairment."

He reminded his listeners that the visually impaired population is increasing rapidly. "Approximately 25 percent of those over 65 are estimated to be vision impaired," he said. "The national Center for Health Statistics predicts that by the year 2020, there will be a doubling of the visually impaired population over age 65."

He said four aspects of vision care concern him: "First as a frame of reference, we need contemporary definitions of aging, low vision, and low vision rehabilitation. Secondly, we need to understand normal or expected changes in vision function associated with aging and relate these to visually impaired persons. Third, we will discuss recent developments in low vision technology and clinical approaches to low vision patient care, and finally we will review selected optometric research data about persons who successfully use low vision devices."

He said the current definition of legal blindness "tells us nothing about a person's visual efficiency, near or reading vision, nature and extent of the visual field, ocular motility skills, ... general intelligence, overall maturity, personal motivation, and so forth."

Rosenbloom said the definition for legal blindness was created more than 60 years ago and is no longer adequate. "By contrast, a functional definition of low vision includes a visually impaired population that equals or exceeds the population of the state of Illinois." He detailed some of the expected changes that older people who lose vision can will undergo. He said some of those changes are being alleviated with newly shaped lenses that result in distortion-free and increased fields of view and bifocals that are five times stronger than similar glasses made 20 years ago. He said telescopic lenses and closed circuit TV have also made a big difference. "Clinical diagnostic and therapeutic approaches have also seen some marked improvement," he explained. "We're now able to measure more accurately visual functions and visual processes as they relate to everyday living."

Rosenbloom concluded his remarks by encouraging ACB members to work with professionals, politicians, and others to bring about change. "Many, if not most, of you here today are in a position to influence attitudes to impact the political process," he said. "You can experiment as professionals with creative non-traditional rehabilitation services and to expand the scope and impact of the low vision rehabilitation team. Indeed, working together, we face challenges that are worthy of our very best efforts."

WEDNESDAY:

The Wednesday session began with a final report from Credentials Committee Chairman Carl McCoy. Following his remarks, the group heard from Judy Heumann, assistant secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the U.S. Department of Education in Washington.

Heumann began her remarks by announcing the confirmation of Fred Schroeder, who formerly headed the agency for the blind in New Mexico, as the new commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration.

She explained the various components of the Department of Education including her office which oversees the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, the Rehabilitation Services Administration, and the Office of Special Education. "I give you this information because I think it's important to realize that OSERS has responsibility for dealing with disabled children through disabled adults," Heumann explained. "It's also where the money's housed for independent living for older blind individuals. ... We've played with the money in such a way that, if we get good applications from all states, every state could receive funding for these services which is different than the past."

She detailed the establishment of an informal working group which meets to deal with issues of interest to the blind community. ACB is represented in that group, as is the National Federation of the Blind, and the American Foundation for the Blind. "ACB has been a critical organization in helping to really scope out and improve the quality of life for blind and low vision individuals and because of its concern for people of all ages. I think it's critically important to have groups like ACB who can reach out to people as they're acquiring their disabilities."

She told her audience about her own experience with discrimination when as a young woman she sought a teaching career privately while publicly announcing plans to be a speech therapist. She held her teacher dream privately, she said, because others assured her that her state agency would deny her services if it learned of her ambition to teach. Rehabilitation counselors told her she should be a social worker. Their edict was based on a series of psychological tests routinely issued to clients at the time. "I guess that was one of my first bouts with the system," she recalled. Her parents urged the state to allow her to pursue her speech therapy goal -- an idea she received in the fourth grade from a speech therapist who assured her that she should pursue that career in order to work in a hospital and get her Mrs. degree; in other words, to find someone at the hospital she could marry. "That was the extent of my counseling in those days," Heumann said.

She described quietly enrolling in education classes at a time when student teaching was not required, so desperate were local school systems to employ a sufficient number of teachers. She passed all the necessary exams to receive her teaching credential until it came time for the medical examination. "I was greeted by a doctor who looked at me and said, 'I've never examined anyone like you before.' I replied, 'And if you don't pass me, I'll sue you.'"

Heumann recalled being subjected to bizarre questions by the doctor including queries about how she could go to the bathroom. Upon learning that she had once used crutches and braces, the physician insisted that she return for a second physical, this time bringing her crutches with her. A wheelchair user, Heumann attempted to explain to no avail that she no longer used crutches and braces.

Her refusal to bring the crutches and braces to the second physical resulted in an declaration of insubordination from the team of three physicians who were by now involved in the second physical. "The sum and substance of this was that I sued the board of education," she remembered. "I had two good attorneys, great publicity, and the first African-American woman who ever was appointed to the federal court as my judge. She told the board of education to give me another physical. They gave me another doctor; they gave me another physical; and I was granted my license. But then, I couldn't get a position; I couldn't get anybody to hire me."

She said she ultimately was hired and taught for three years in an elementary school. "I think we all wake up in the morning knowing that if we're going to go out and really do what we want to do with our lives without having our disabilities adversely affect us, we have to be prepared for the bizarre."

Heumann urged ACB members to reach out to legislators to include them in ways that allow the legislators to see disabled people in work and school settings. Such exposure, she said, will always be of value when ACB members express their concerns to those legislators.

She assured her listeners that money had been set aside in her office to provide materials it publishes in alternative formats such as braille and cassette. "We're also working within the department to make sure that anyone getting money from the Department of Education will be given additional notification so that they are alerted to the fact that if they are producing videos or films that they be in appropriate media, which means captioning closed or open; and, if they're producing any written materials, that those materials need to be available in appropriate media also," she explained. She said such notification means the department's grants and contracts office will have to look more carefully at budgets of those submitting grants to ensure that they include provision for production of materials in alternative formats, "and it will also begin to give a repeated message to universities, non- profits and others around the United States that are applying for money that whether the money deals specifically with issues affecting disabled people, disabled people have interest in all areas. They shouldn't assume that the only materials that need to be produced in appropriate media are those pieces of material that are coming out from the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services."

Almost immediately upon soliciting questions from the audience, Heumann took some heat for having once declared that residential schools are immoral. ACB member Roger Petersen suggested that full inclusion, which might mean that a blind child would grow up without any other blind role models, is also immoral.

"Let me put all this in a proper context," Heumann said. "I gave a speech last year at a conference in California where the audience of people there had very little interest in either blindness or deafness. I think for me having been through segregated schools, I felt the education was quite inferior. I think the education that physically disabled kids get and kids with learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, and those types of disabilities have traditionally in segregated settings have not been very good educations. I think programs for the blind and programs for the deaf have been different inasmuch as many of those programs have had blind and deaf individuals who had been amongst the faculty.

"That has certainly not been the case of other programs for other people with other types of disabilities," Heumann explained. "My position is not one of full inclusion; my position is one which says that the law requires that every child be given an individual assessment and be placed appropriately. My position is that the vast majority of children ... can be effectively integrated into regular school settings with appropriate training and teachers and appropriate services for those students.

"I have spoken out very strongly about the need for blind and visually impaired students to receive both mobility and orientation training and appropriate training in braille and getting appropriate technology," she added. "I speak about that every place because I completely believe that if kids are not getting these services they are not going to be able to grow up with the kind of educational background that they need. ... I guess when you hear me make statements about segregated schools being immoral, the bottom line is a lot of children are in schools inappropriately in segregated settings which are not the most appropriate placement for them. They're not getting good educational experiences, and I think that's part of the problem when we look at the 70 percent unemployment rate of disabled people." Following Heumann's remarks, Doug Wakefield addressed the convention regarding the National Information Infrastructure from his perspective. Wakefield, a computer specialist with the Clearinghouse on Computer Accommodations in the General Services Administration, was the first of a three-member panel to look at telecommunications issues.

Wakefield began by warning his listeners that regardless of what they thought of computers, the coming changes in communications would affect every member of the listening audience. He briefly described the Internet, a now-global computer network to which civilians connect via telephone modems which was originally begun by the Department of Defense. He said the National Information Infrastructure or information superhighway, as many call it, includes much more than computer connections. It includes automatic teller machines that communicate with computers via satellite, interactive cable television, visual telephone.

"It sounds wonderful," Wakefield said. "So what is our concern? Our concern is that things are moving towards graphics. ... You can do things visually without having to think. This whole idea of the Windows interface on the computer, for instance, you don't have to think. There is a whole science of intuitive symbols; symbols that, by looking at them, have a meaning."

He said by contrast, the only thing intuitive about hearing is whether something is too loud or too soft. He reminded his listeners that the ability to see is a good thing and that people rightfully enjoy using the graphical interface. "We're on the threshold of losing more than we have ever gained in the past," Wakefield explained. "All government is trying to do is primarily make sense of all these little highways and trying to set up some sort of regulations that says if you have this information and it is public, you have to have it in a form that can be used by people who don't see. ... But that doesn't mean it's going to happen at all.

"When the American Civil Liberties Union says in front of Congress that they're against descriptive video because it violates somebody's civil rights, you know we're in trouble," Wakefield said. "I thought that was as milquetoast and all American apple pie as you could have. I couldn't imagine anybody being against it."

He said on-line communications such as Prodigy are becoming increasingly inaccessible. "Things are moving very fast," he said. "We've had a lot of electronic services; a lot of them are becoming inaccessible. ... If you do nothing, ... then the information superhighway is going to leave you in the ditch."

Jim Tobias who represented Bellcorp, the research arm of the Regional Bell Operating Companies, was the second panelist. He demonstrated a product designed for blind telephone users called Deskset. He talked about the variety of people involved in information creation and use. "If you were a developer of information resource," he said, "why would you make it accessible? What would inform you to make it accessible? The only strategies that I can think of are the carrot and the stick. The carrot is the market. How many people will want your resource and will want to pay for it one way or another. And the stick, I think, is represented here unfortunately by the woman who will be presenting after me from the FCC. I don't mean to insult her or the agency. But I think we need to understand how both carrot and stick interact in improving the accessibility of information resources. We shouldn't limit our approach to only one mechanism."

Tobias called for better data collection to assist marketers in making access decisions. He said knowing how many people had a particular eye disease or problem is less important than knowing how many people can't read the type in the yellow pages for whatever reason. "I would cry out to you for assistance in getting those numbers as finely designated as we can so that I can render them to the people in my industry and other people in the rest of the telecommunications industry can use them."

Tobias demonstrated a network-based product that allows a blind person to call from any phone anywhere in the world and access a talking appointment calendar, talking clock, talking calculator, and allows him or her to dial out to another number. The fact that the product is network based means that no special equipment is needed nor is it necessary to operate the program from a certain site. All of the program's functions and features are housed at the network end rather than in the user's home or specially made telephone. "You use your phone to access it," he explained, "but it doesn't tie up your phone. You can still place and receive calls."

He said utilizing the network rather than forcing blind customers to rush out and buy specially made equipment can result in lower prices for the customer. Not only does the customer not have to buy the equipment, but the network can share the resources with other sighted customers who may need similar features for different purposes. Finally, he urged ACB members to work with industry to let them know what can be built into a product for accessibility rather than retrofitting unaccessible products.

The final information superhighway panelist was Donna Lambert, a senior policy adviser and special legislative counsel for the Federal Communications Commission. Lambert compared the information superhighway to sex among teens. "Everybody talks about it all the time, everybody thinks everybody else is doing it, the few people who are doing it are not exactly sure what they're doing, but everybody hopes that when they finally do it, it's gonna be great."

Lambert asserted that new technology and policy changes would result in increased diversity of information in increasingly diverse ways of delivery. "This is really what the premise of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution is all about -- a guiding principle for our country."

Lambert discounted claims by those who believe that industry is not particularly interested in providing accessible technology. She commended Pacific Bell on the establishment of an advisory group for people with disabilities. "They've done excellent and very forward-looking work," she said.

In a question-and-answer session following Lambert's remarks, ACB Director of Governmental Affairs Paul Schroeder politely reminded Lambert of the FCC's previous record of acting cautiously and reluctantly at best in many areas of disability access. "I'm wondering if you could give us a sense, Donna, how we might most successfully work with your commission given that we don't feel like there has been a great deal of positive interaction between the disability community and the Federal Communications Commission. How can we get off to a good start on this issue?"

"I think the most important thing you can do is make yourself heard early on," she said. Schroeder evidently agreed with Lambert. Near the end of the discussion, he reminded his listeners that not enough of them had contacted their representatives in Congress regarding technology and access.

THURSDAY:

Dick Seifert, a former ACB board member and chair of the 1994 nominating committee, opened the Thursday session by presenting the committee's report. (See "ACB Elections 1994," this issue.) Paul Schroeder introduced Thursday's first speaker, Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.). Schroeder characterized Simon as "a strong and consistent friend of people with disabilities and blind people." Simon said his interest in blind people began when he was very young as he watched his grandmother transcribe printed material to braille. He began his speech with a plea for support from ACB members on universal coverage in health care reform. He reminisced about his own involvement in the passage of various bills that have been "significant steps forward" where disabled Americans are concerned. Simon refuted claims by cynics who charge that individual involvement in government is of limited or no value. "No one should think for a moment that when you send that letter, when you make that phone call, when you stand up for the rights not only of yourselves but for others, that doesn't have an impact. Believe me, it does have an impact." On the subject of welfare reform, Simon said he favors reform and said Clinton's overall record on welfare reform is a good one. "But I have to say that I'm not enthusiastic about the current proposals for welfare reform," he said. "I think what is being offered is good but timid in terms of helping people who need to and want to get off welfare. So I haven't seen all the details, but I've seen the budget and the general pronouncements; I am not one of its enthusiastic backers at the moment." Following his remarks, Simon presented 20 scholarships to the 1994 scholarship recipients. The remainder of the Thursday session was dedicated to speeches by scholarship winners and to resolutions. Tapes of the 1994 convention are available for $23 for a complete set from the ACB National Office, 1155 15th St. NW, Suite 720, Washington, DC 20005. All orders must be pre-paid. Credit cards are not accepted. The tapes play at the standard 1-7/8 inches per second speed and are recorded on two tracks per tape. The tapes include regular print and braille labels and are audibly labeled. The 20-tape set includes all morning convention sessions, the diabetes seminar, and the legislative seminar. The Friends-In-Art Showcase is not included and cannot be ordered through the ACB National Office. CAPTIONS Sharon Keeran presents Carl Augusto with the George Card award, as LeRoy Saunders and Sharon Lovering look on. ACB Assistant Treasurer Jim Olsen Larry Gorski Enrique Servando Sanchez Frank Kurt Cylke Laura Oftedahl Bud Keith Robert F. Harris Roy Avers Dr. Faye S. Baggiano Kevin O'Connor Dr. Alfred Rosenbloom Judy Heumann Doug Wakefield Donna Lambert Sen Paul Simon, D-Ill.

The 1994 election of board members, board of publications members, and one officer during the ACB 33rd annual national convention in July was an interesting mixture of unopposed candidacies and hotly contested races. Stephen Speicher, an attorney from Lincoln, Neb., and ACB board member was elected by acclimation to fill the remaining year of the term for ACB's second vice presidency. The post has been vacant since the resignation of Robert J. Acosta of California several months earlier. "I really do want to know what's important to you," Speicher said upon accepting the office. "Don't assume that I already do. Tell me and tell me again." ACB board members Pamela Shaw and John Horst were re-elected to the board without opposition. "I look forward to another four years," Horst said. "I'm deeply honored to serve as a member of the ACB leadership team," Shaw said. "But I really can't do it without you." M.J. Schmitt, president of the Illinois Council of the Blind, was elected to the board without opposition. "I want to thank all of you for your renewed confidence in me and for coming here ... I'll always have open ears to hear anything that you think this board needs to take action on." Richard Villa, a computer programmer from Bedford, Texas, was nominated by the committee. He did not have the luxury of an unopposed candidacy, however. He faced Kristal Hagemoser Platt of Omaha, Neb., and Lou Calesso of Morristown, N.J. With a total vote count of 1,091, Platt received 615.5 votes, 56.42 percent of the vote. "Thank you for your support," she said. "I think you'll find I'm a woman of integrity and commitment." Jack Lewis, Anderson, Ind., nominated by the nominating committee for one of the vacant board positions, faced Richard Villa and Dawn Christensen of Holland, Ohio. None of the three captured a clear majority of votes, thereby forcing a run-off election between Richard Villa and Dawn Christensen. Villa squeaked by Christensen with a five-vote majority, 516 votes for Villa, 511 votes for Christensen. Because the vote was so close, ACB Assistant Treasurer Jim Olsen requested time to double check his totals against those of other counters. Olsen's totals were accurate; Villa won with 50.24 percent of the vote; Christensen received 49.76 percent of the vote. "You guys are tough," Villa quipped in remarks following the election. "I love you all; I'm willing to do what it takes to get the job done." BOARD OF PUBLICATIONS Mitch Pomerantz of Los Angeles, Calif., and Kim Charlson of Watertown, Mass., were re-elected to their second two-year terms as members of the board of publications. Dana Walker of Montgomery, Ala., was nominated by the nominating committee to a third term on the publications board. While Pomerantz and Charlson were re-elected without opposition, Walker faced Tom Mitchell of Salt Lake City, Utah, president of the Utah Council of the Blind. "It's been an interesting and challenging first two years," Pomerantz said. "I suspect the next two years will be just as interesting and probably more challenging." "I appreciate your support," said Charlson upon being elected. "I look forward to two years to continue the work I've started on the board of publications." Mitchell defeated the incumbent Dana Walker, garnering 62.21 percent of the vote. "You have honored me with your trust," Mitchell said following his election. "I pledge to you now that I will do my very best to make sure that trust is not misplaced." CAPTION ACB's New (and some former) board of directors: Top row, left to right: LeRoy F. Saunders, Charles S. P. Hodge, Brian Charlson, Stephen Speiker, Michael Byington, Richard Villa, Chris Gray, Nolan Crabb; bottom row, left to right: Sue Ammeter, Jean Mann, Ardis Bazyn, Kristal Platt, Patricia Price, Pamela Shaw, M. J. Schmitt.

After a long week of meetings at the American Council of the Blind's 33rd annual national convention, members were treated to chicken and carrots at the banquet on Friday, July 8. "When I became president, there were a few people who certainly knew that I'm a beef and potato person," said ACB President LeRoy Saunders, "and I was told that they would probably never see chicken again until I stopped being president. Well, even though I am not very fond of chicken, I am very concerned about what things cost. So tonight, we will have chicken." Banquet attendees were also treated to old-time radio clips, such as Fibber McGee and Molly, Amos and Andy, and many others, courtesy of Chuck Schaden. "Braille Forum" Editor Nolan Crabb introduced Schaden to banquet attendees as "... a man who truly loved the medium, who truly loved the people and its time, and who loved to present those people and that medium in our time. Chuck Schaden has bridged the gap for so many generations and introduced thousands of people who would never otherwise have had that opportunity to a wonderful, magical world that knows no bounds, a world not bound by a 21-inch television screen but a world of absolute imagination." "Who knows what evil ..." Schaden began, only to be interrupted by the audience yelling out, "The Shadow!" "Those were the days. The great days of radio. I grew up with them. I was a little kid listening on the floor of the living room on that kind of a red paisley Oriental rug." And he took his listeners back to the good old days of radio, beginning with what the call letters of different radio stations stood for. For example, WMAQ, owned by the Chicago Daily News, stood for "We Must Ask Questions." Those were also the days of the Lone Ranger, when Schaden and his brother would rush through dinner. "Radio was family," he said. "Radio was a family time. We could sit together in the living room the whole time ..." And the picture wasn't limited to the size of a television screen -- "what I was seeing was wonderful, wonderful pictures that came into my imagination through the courtesy of our friends on the other side of that dial of that radio." Schaden drew his audience into his speech by dipping into his repertoire of shows, from "Lights out, everybody. It is later than you think," to "Raymond opened the creaking door of the inner sanctum. 'Good evening, friends.'" "Radio was wonderful," he said. "We had to participate. You know, with television, that's a spectator sport. With radio, it's a participatory sport. You have to be there." Listeners costumed the actors, dressed up the sets, and the heroine looked the way the listener wanted her to look. "I grew up with the radio shows," he added. "I could hardly wait for television to come because I wanted to see what all my radio people looked like. When I saw them on television they didn't look like the pictures that I had made up in my mind, and I was disappointed. Well, how could they? How could they look the way I imagined them?" He enjoyed TV, but, "I realized I was missing those radio friends of mine, so I went back and turned on the radio, and they were gone." Upon discovering this, Schaden recognized a genuine void which resulted from the lack of programming he had known years earlier. Then he discovered there were some of the radio shows still around. A friend of his serving in Japan after the war was working at a radio station, entered a room that was marked "no admittance." The friend found a whole wall loaded with 16-inch records, and he pulled one out that was marked "Fibber McGee and Molly." Schaden's friend took a tape recorder, copied the records and sent them to Schaden. He put the tape on, started listening, "and I thought I died and went to heaven." After a while, he began inviting friends over to listen to radio shows. Then he began wondering how to share it with people, and went to a radio station in Evanston, Ill. The station told him he needed to find his own sponsors. He found a bank that would divert some money from its billboard advertising, and turned his avocation into a vocation. "I love listening to those radio shows, and I love sharing them with the people who listen and with the people who remember, and a lot of people who tune us in don't have a memory of it," he said. Schaden then added some "sounds" from his collection, including live music from the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. "Comedy was a mainstay of radio," he said. He shared taped samples of his programs including the famous routine of "who's on first?" by Abbott and Costello whom Schaden characterized as "one of the best comedy teams on radio." He treated his listeners to snippets of Edgar Bergen the ventriloquist. "The listening audience would not believe that he was a ventriloquist with his friend Charlie McCarthy," Schaden said. This caused a bit of a controversy, and soon after appearing several times on the Fleishmann's Yeast hour he got his own show. "When W.C. Fields, who didn't get along with Charlie, came onto the show, it meant only one thing: great entertainment for the listening audience." He played a clip which included Fields, Bergen, and Charlie. "I thought you didn't like children," Bergen said. "Oh, not at all, Edgar," Fields said, "I love children. I can remember when, with my own little unsteady legs I toddled from room to room." "When was that, last night?" Charlie asked. Schaden also played clips from the Bickersons, and Amos and Andy. "Could anybody fight as much as the Bickersons?" he asked. "They were great." Amos and Andy started out as Sam and Henry, black characters -- and the two men who played them were white. They got an offer from WMAQ to come over and do their comedy, but had to ask to get out of their agreement with WGN. They were told they could go, but had to leave the names Sam and Henry behind. So they pick names from their memory; Amos had been an elevator operator, and Andy was the man holding the door at the Drake Hotel. They were a bigger hit at WMAQ than at WGN. "They were so popular that movie theaters advertised on the marquis that they would stop the movie and pipe in the radio show, and they did!" Schaden said. Sound effects were important in Amos and Andy, as in Jack Benny. Jack Benny's old Maxwell car had to have special sound effects, and Mel Blanc performed them. The clip Schaden played of the old Maxwell starting up sounded like a car coughing, sputtering, sneezing, howling like a wildcat, choking, wheezing, and spitting -- all at once. After a while, Blanc went to Benny and said, "You know, Mr. Benny, I can talk, too." Benny's writers came up with a little Mexican man named Sy. "... I guarantee you, you laughed more at 90 seconds of Jack Benny from 50 years ago than you do at 90 minutes of television comedy today, right? "... Jack Benny was a stingy guy; very cheap. He didn't trust the banks. Where did he put his money?" "In the vault!" Schaden's audience yelled. "And the vault was way beneath his home," Schaden said. "Great opportunity for the sound effects man again. Jack would decide he needed some money, he would go down, open the secret panel ... down, down beneath his home. He'd come upon a moat, he'd lower a drawbridge, cross the moat, maybe an alligator or two would be snapping at his ankles. He'd go in and he'd turn the dial on the combination lock and the alarm would go off." And he promptly played the sound clip of Benny going to the vault, with the creaking drawbridge and spinning the combination on the lock. "You know, the sound effects did so much for us on radio," Schaden said. "And you know, it never cost the producer anything more to have any kind of a sound effect. ... A spaceship can land and open and frighten half the country, as Orson Welles did with the 'War of the Worlds.' And you know how that spaceship opened on the Orson Welles broadcast? They couldn't find the right sound. They knew that if they took a mason jar and turned ... the top ... and held it close to the microphone, and they said, 'That's about the sound of a Martian cylinder opening.' And Orson Welles says, 'There's not enough; we need a little something bigger. ...' And the sound man tried everything. ... He put the microphone on the longest cord they had in Studio A at CBS in New York and he took it down the hall into the men's room. The tiled men's room. ... He went into one of the stalls and he knelt in front of the bowl and he took the microphone, he hung it on the handle of the toilet and he took this mason jar into the bowl, not touching the water, and he started to unscrew it. And the sound -- the hollowness, the reverberation -- he said, 'How's that?' And many yards away, in Studio A, he heard Orson Welles yelling, 'That's it! That's it!' And that's how the Martians landed on CBS." Laughter and applause followed this segment as well. "But of course, first they had to go to the men's room. "Now there was one sound on radio that came on like gangbusters. It was 'Gangbusters,' an exciting police program that grabbed your attention in the first 30 seconds. It grabbed you by the neck and sat you down in front of that radio, and said, 'You're going to listen to this exciting police story.'" A shrill whistle, a police siren, a dog barking, guns firing, and the announcer's voice calling all policemen followed. "At the end of the program, they would broadcast clues to America's most wanted. So they would tell you to be on the lookout for a man, six foot five, long blond hair, tattoo on right forearm, walks with a limp, has a scar on his cheek. Be careful; this man may be armed and dangerous. If you see him, call your nearest law enforcement agency. Do not call the radio station." The last sound Schaden shared with his listeners was that of Fibber McGee's closet. Giggles of expectation preceded the actual opening of the closet door. "They had in their home a hall closet," Schaden began. "And everybody had a hall closet. Even if you didn't have a hall closet, you had some place where you stashed all your junk. And Fibber McGee's hall closet was loaded to the gills with all kinds of stuff. ... Fibber's closet opened maybe once a month. But it made such an impact on the listening audience that when somebody inadvertently opened up that closet door, you knew all the stuff that was coming out. You could see the stuff that was coming out, and it mostly was the same kind of stuff that you had in your closet. If you were lucky enough to be in the audience of a Fibber McGee and Molly broadcast, you saw the sound men doing their thing. ... When the studio audience filed in half an hour before the show was to be broadcast, they saw a contraption up on the stage that really piqued their interest. It was a series of stairs, maybe five feet high, steps. And on each of those steps was loaded pots and pans and bowling pins and wooden boxes and metal silverware and all kinds of stuff like that strategically placed, and right up at the very top was a little bell ... for the payoff. And then someone would say in the course of the program, 'No, no, no, not that door, that's the hall closet!' You'd hear the door open, and then the sound man would start at the bottom step and he'd knock the stuff off that step. ... And finally, all of this stuff would come crashing down with a wonderfully placed microphone to catch all of this excitement. And then when it all crashed, it got the biggest laugh, the payoff would be this little tinkle-tinkle at the end of the thing. The closet gag was 25 seconds long out of a 30-minute program that was on the air for 20 years, and everybody remembers it." And then he played the clip for his listeners, to wild applause. Schaden finished up by inviting his listeners to the Broadcast Museum and to ask questions. "You can see Fibber McGee and Molly's hall closet exhibit over at the museum, you can open that closet door -- and stand back if you will. You can also walk into Jack Benny's vault over there, and you can see Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, along with lots of other things that are on display at the museum." He closed with Ben Burnie's "yowsa, yowsa," who wished the listeners "good luck and happiness, success, good health ... and don't forget, should you ever, ever send in your request, why, we'll sho' try to do our best. ... Good night." CAPTION Chuck Schaden explains how the Martians landed on CBS captions

Floyd Qualls Memorial Scholarship-graduate category:
Rebecca Rupp
Behnaz Soulati

Floyd Qualls Memorial Scholarship-undergraduate category:
Frank Lopez
Lori Miller (not pictured)
Shawn Mayo (not in attendance)

Floyd Qualls Memorial Scholarship-freshman category:
Ashish Anand
Anna Schneider
Keith Wessel

Dr. Mae Davidow Memorial Scholarship:
Patricia Davis

Melva T. Owen Memorial Scholarship:
Arie Farnam

TeleSensory Corporation Scholarship:
Daniel Simpson

William Corey Memorial Scholarship:
Brian McCall

NIB scholarships:
Michelle Ferritto
Robin Smithtro
Scott Meyers (not pictured)

Kellie Cannon Memorial Scholarship:
Qiong Du

Xerox Imaging Systems scholarship:
Tonia Valletta

Central Virginia Council of the Blind scholarship:
Jun Yin

Arnold Ostwald Memorial Science Scholarship:
Tim Cordes

John Hebner Memorial Scholarship:
Dawn Flewwellin

Scholarship in Memory of Anne Pekar:
Kimberly Morrow

Did you know that many meeting organizers, associations, businesses and so forth are looking more closely at second-tier cities for their meetings? Many companies are moving their programs out of major meeting destinations and trying out smaller cities. The traditional destinations between smaller and larger cities are becoming less noticeable since many second-tier cities now have substantial meeting and exhibit space. Second-tier cities are often more flexible and resourceful. In their efforts to obtain a larger share of the convention business, second-tier cities across the United States are expanding their convention centers or building new ones. A problem is, however, that these cities may lack the hotel rooms to go along with this expanded meeting space. Our 1995 convention in Greensboro is an example. We have substantial space at the Four Seasons Holiday Inn for all the convention activities but are forced to use additional hotels for overflow sleeping rooms. However, second-tier cities are often able to offer greater service and commitment to groups like ours. Judith Grizzel, president of the Greensboro Convention Bureau, says second-tier cities aren't always as structured as first-tier cities. She adds they can be more flexible and offer more services. At the ACB convention in 1995, for example, there will be free transportation from the airport, a distance of 10 miles from the hotel. Also, there will be no cost to ACB for shuttle service between the hotels and no charge for local phone calls. Food and local transportation costs will be much more reasonable than in Chicago or San Francisco. In a city like Greensboro, the ACB convention is a bigger fish in a medium-sized pond. We will not be competing with something like the World Cup or some other large group as we did in Chicago. The ACB convention is certainly not small, but considering our vital interest in low-cost rooms most of our future convention sites will most likely be in second-tier cities. The dates of the 1995 convention are Saturday, July 1 through Saturday, July 8. The place is the Holiday Inn Four Seasons, Joseph F. Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, N.C. Room rates are $47 per night for single through quad. Reservations can be made by calling the hotel at 1-800-242-6556. The hotel address is 3121 High Point Rd., Greensboro, N.C. 27404. All reservations are being handled by the Holiday Inn Four Seasons. CAPTION John and June Horst listen intently to Chuck Schaden at the banquet in Chicago.

The American Council of the Blind is interested in hiring an individual with a background in legislative/advocacy/civil rights work for a non-profit organization, preferably dealing with disability concerns. Well-developed writing and verbal skills are essential. Primary responsibilities include: promoting and developing American Council of the Blind programs involving governmental action; advocating changes in existing law; conveying the position of the Council on pending legislative and administrative proposals; maintaining cooperative relationships with other organizations which have similar objectives; providing advice and technical assistance to affiliates and to blind individuals; keeping the membership informed about legislative developments; recommending actions to be taken and policies to be adopted by the Council; and performing other related work as assigned. A reasonable amount of travel is required. Applicants should have a general familiarity with the public interest community and a commitment to progressive social and economic reform. Minimum qualifications: Two years experience, J.D. optional. Send resumes, including salary history and requirements, by Nov. 1, 1994 to: Oral O. Miller, National Representative, American Council of the Blind, 1155 15th St. NW, Suite 720, Washington, D.C. 20005.

(Editor's note: The Technology Access Advisory Group grew out of a working group of rehabilitation practitioners at the 1994 Josephine L. Taylor Leadership Institute. This paper was written by Karen Wolffe, Anita Baldwin, Betty Bird, Alan Dinsmore, Gil Johnson, Elton Moore, Paul Schroeder, and Gregg Vanderheiden.) Current data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicate that one person in 20 has significantly impaired vision which cannot be further improved with corrective lenses. This figure translates into approximately 12 million Americans with visual impairments. Access to information and technology is a great leveler for blind and visually impaired people, allowing them to fully participate in our society. Alternatively, lack of such access creates a technology underclass who will be functionally illiterate in the information explosion. Accordingly, Congress must establish statutory and regulatory requirements which mandate access to telecommunications equipment and network services by individuals with visual disabilities. Market forces and expanding technological capabilities cannot be relied upon to ensure the design and manufacture of products and services which are fully accessible without this mandate. The equipment and networks which will become the information infrastructure must offer the potential for output/display of information in multiple and synonymous modes including audio, visual, and tactile; along with choice among operating methods including speech, keypads, point and click mechanisms, simplified interfaces and other activation mechanisms usable by people with various disabilities. Graphical user interface (GUI) technology coupled with an accelerated and pervasive trend for displaying information in a highly visual format has hampered access to data for blind people. Concerns relate to both personal work stations and public access information systems. Specific concerns for access include, but are not limited to the following: personal computers and computer networks running on GUI access software; touch keys and touch screens on microwave ovens, stove tops, video recorders, small and large electronic appliances; automatic teller machines; service and information kiosks; building directories; and the like. National guidelines or standards to address information access for blind and visually impaired people are needed. Ultimately, accessibility must become an integral part of all interface designs. GUIs basically use visual metaphors, for which some blind people lack the necessary frame of reference. Therefore, non-visual alternatives must be developed for recognizing, selecting and pointing to objects on the screen, describing icons, and conveying information portrayed by spatial relationships among various objects to the user. Current screen reader access programs for GUI-based computers are still in the early stages of development and are not yet able to provide comparable performance or ease of use. Employment opportunities are being stymied for blind and visually impaired people. Although there are a variety of approaches being tested by software developers, consumer groups, governmental agencies, and others, there is a striking lack of coordination between these efforts. Up-to-date reporting on the status of these efforts is difficult to access. Five major problems which must be resolved before blind computer users will have full access to GUIs include: 1) Navigating around the screen; 2) Identifying objects on the screen; 3) Translating information represented by pictures and graphs; 4) Presenting information in a timely manner; and 5) Coping with the variety of screen formats. For further information, contact any of the following individuals: Technology Access Advisory Group Anita Baldwin, Rose Resnick Lighthouse, San Francisco, (415) 431-1203 Betty Bird, The Lighthouse, New York, (212) 821-9220 Alan Dinsmore, American Foundation for the Blind, Washington, (202) 457-1495 Gil Johnson, American Foundation for the Blind, San Francisco, (415) 392-4845 Elton Moore, Mississippi State University, Rehabilitation, Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision, Starksville, (601) 325-2001 Paul Schroeder, American Council of the Blind, Washington, (202) 467-5081 Gregg Vanderheiden, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Trace Research & Development Center, Madison, (608) 263-5788 Karen Wolffe, Alliance of and for Visually Impaired Texans, Austin, (512) 280-5792 Please join us in this effort to promote equal access for individuals who have visual disabilities. Committee member Gregg Vanderheiden, who is affiliated with Trace Research & Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has graciously offered to establish and maintain a mailing list of interested parties. He can be reached at: Trace Center, S-151 Waisman Center, 1500 Highland Ave., Madison, WI 53705-2280; by phone: (608) 263-5788 or (608) 262-6966; TDD, (608) 263-5408; or fax, (608) 262-8828; or E-mail: [email protected]. If you would like to discuss the paper or the group's current efforts, please feel free to contact any group member.

(Editor's note: As you read this, many ACB affiliates will be involved in state conventions. Resolutions on rehabilitation services may well be a part of those conventions. For that reason, we felt it might be timely to include a position paper on rehabilitation services as written by a consortium of consumer organizations and service providers including ACB.) The Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws enacted in recent years in the United States and Canada represent enlightened disability policy. However, the noticeable trend to define "disability" as an overarching generic condition for purposes of program design, administration, and funding is pernicious in its effect upon rehabilitation services for children and adults who are blind or visually impaired. It is the common experience of the agencies and organizations that have joined in this statement that specialized, comprehensive rehabilitation services and essential changes in social attitudes about blindness do not occur when rehabilitation services for the blind are provided through a single program which serves both blind and disabled persons. This is so in large part because the characteristics and distinctive needs of the blind become lost amid much larger issues and populations and because specialized services are overshadowed by diverse, unrelated goals. The accomplishment of individualized rehabilitation goals can be achieved in an efficient, consumer-responsive manner when blind people have access to an agency dedicated to providing blindness-specific services. Such an agency must be administratively identifiable and have qualified personnel especially trained to serve the blind. Accountability for program results is strengthened by this organizational structure and staffing since accomplishment of specific objectives for a defined target population of manageable size can readily be measured. When program results fail to merit support, blind consumers and their advocates or the professionals who serve them can make focused efforts to insist upon improvements. Promoting more enlightened social attitudes about blindness is an indispensable goal of specialized services for the blind. To achieve this unique goal competent personnel, including blind persons serving as role models in both staff and volunteer capacities, must be assigned to teach blindness-related alternative techniques. Blind individuals require comprehensive and often complex rehabilitation services in areas such as adjustment training, independent mobility, braille, and the use of assistive technology to meet their particular information needs resulting from vision loss. Most importantly, they must develop confidence, which is a prerequisite to effective use of these skills in daily life. Laws pertaining to "people with disabilities" as a class may appropriately be general if the purpose is to prohibit discrimination or to identify individual rights. However, rehabilitation programs and the laws which authorize them have a far more precise mission. When services for the blind are submerged into broad disability programs precision is sacrificed for generality, and comprehensive, consumer-responsive services for blind individuals are lost. This position statement has been unanimously adopted by national agencies and organizations in the United States and Canada which represent those who provide services for persons who are blind or visually impaired and those who are the elected representatives of the blind. We are firmly committed to the provision of specialized rehabilitation services for blind persons by identifiable agencies especially established to serve them. We urge program administrators, lawmakers, and other public officials to follow the principles expressed in this statement. Signed, Paul Edwards, American Council of the Blind Susan Spungin, American Foundation for the Blind Barbara McCarthy, Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired Carl E. Foley, Blinded Veterans Association Geraldine Brook, Canadian Council of the Blind Euclid Herie, Canadian National Institute for the Blind Kenneth Jernigan, National Federation of the Blind Frank Kurt Cylke, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

GEORGIA CONVENTION JUST PEACHY The Georgia Council of the Blind held its 33rd annual state convention in Augusta Aug. 11-14. More than 100 people attended. On Friday night, they held an auction and raised $900 toward their 1995 scholarships. Saturday morning was taken up with an educational program and exhibits, followed by an evening banquet and '50s and '60s dance. Sunday morning was all business, with elections. The new officers are: president, John Brockington; first vice president, Tim Kelly; second vice president, Gerald Pye; secretary, Janet Clary; treasurer, June Willis, and new board member-at-large, Sandy Thomas. PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION The Pennsylvania Council of the Blind convention will be held Nov. 11-13 at the Ramada Inn in Wilkes-Barre, located on Public Square across the street from the bus station. Room rates are $50 for singles and double. To make reservations, call (717) 824-7100. There will be a tour Friday morning. UPCOMING CONVENTIONS The following is a list of upcoming conventions for all you readers out there who've asked. Bay State Council of the Blind -- late October/early November Washington Council of the Blind -- Nov. 3-5 in Richland Connecticut Council of the Blind -- Nov. 5-6 California Council of the Blind -- Nov. 10-13 in Irvine ACB of Ohio -- Nov. 11-13 in Columbus Kentucky Council of the Blind -- Nov. 11-12 in Louisville Delaware Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired -- Nov. 12 in Wilmington. North Carolina Council of the Blind -- Nov. 18-20 in Asheville D.C. Association of Workers for the Blind -- Nov. 19

(Editor's note: The following letter is ACB's comments on the subject of entitlements which are considered a major problem in reducing the federal budget deficit. We are greatly concerned because there appears to be so much sentiment in Congress and elsewhere that the Social Security Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Programs need to be reduced and modified in order to reduce the budget deficit. Members of Congress and others seem to ignore or do not understand that the OASDI programs are not part of the budget and reductions or changes in the programs will not reduce the deficit. Since the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform's recommendations will be delivered after the current Congress but before the next, members of the 104th Congress will be given something to use as an opening "to attack the growing deficit." We need to be alert and advise our congressmen not to attack the programs. The OASDI programs are from trust funds in which we have deposited our funds in good faith, thinking that they would be available to us or our survivors when needed. We are entitled to those funds, and our taxes should not be used to support or carry out other programs.) The Honorable J. Robert Kerry, Chairman The Honorable John C. Danforth, Vice-Chairman Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform 825 Hart Senate Office Building 120 Constitution Ave. NE Washington, DC 20210 Gentlemen: The American Council of the Blind is submitting comments for the commission's consideration in response to the May 18, 1994 "Federal Register" invitation. The American Council of the Blind is a national membership organization established to promote the independence and well-being of individuals who are blind and visually impaired. By providing numerous programs and services, ACB enables blind and visually impaired people to live and work independently, contribute significantly to their communities, and advocate for themselves. We are greatly concerned with the possible outcomes of the work of the commission and the recommendations that might be made concerning the Social Security Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Programs. We are especially concerned when the rhetoric flowing from the media and other sources indicate that one of the major efforts may be to reduce benefits, cost of living increases, increase the age of retirement and other actions involving the Social Security trust funds under the guise of reducing the federal deficit. As you know, any reduction in benefits, cost of living increases or changes in retirement ages for the OASDI programs would not affect the budget deficit one way or the other, since the trust funds are "off-budget." OASDI payments are truly an entitlement inasmuch as they are specifically funded by the taxpayer through the taxes withheld from the employee and employer, and the self- employed, for the sole purpose of providing benefits to those who retire, their dependents and survivors, and to those who become disabled after sufficient contributions to the trust funds. The OASDI funds should not be lumped with other "entitlements," such as: Aid to Families with Dependent Children; subsidies to farmers; subsidies to transportation companies; special computations for congressional pensions; expenses for retired speakers of the House; long-term expenses for retired presidents and similar expenditures that are not provided for through a specific tax and mandated savings for the purpose. The benefit payments are already means-tested since 85 percent becomes taxable income after specified levels of income are reached. The more you "save" through cutbacks in benefits and cost of living increases for the beneficiaries, the more the Treasury borrows, building up a larger and larger debt due the trust funds. If and when that debt is ever called, the Treasury will have to go to the public market for funds, paying high interest to repay the trust funds. However, I would anticipate that Congress would raise the social security tax rate to replenish the trust funds so that Treasury could continue to use OASDI funds to subsidize other programs. Instead of looking at the trust funds as a source for other Treasury monies, Congress should authorize the Social Security Administration additional staffing to overcome the current backlogs and to administer the programs in an efficient and timely manner. With current staffing levels and anticipated cuts, the programs are becoming more costly than they would be if administered properly. People are on the disability rolls for years who would no longer be eligible if they were re-examined. Also, since the SSA cannot overcome the backlog of current disability claims (soon to be almost a million awaiting decision) and the backlog of appeals awaiting action, people are essentially denied benefits to which they are entitled, without any recourse. It is now taking about two years or longer to obtain a final decision in a disability application if the initial decision is appealed. Those are claims for benefits for which people have worked and paid their taxes, which they thought would "entitle" them to benefits when they could no longer work, retired, or for their survivors if they died. At least that is the way the Social Security Act was interpreted to the workers when they wanted to know why they had to obtain a Social Security number, and why the tax was withheld from their earnings, regardless of their desires. The attached leaflet published by the Department of Health and Human Services (SSA Publication No. 05-10010) goes into great detail about the benefits one may receive from the taxes paid because of the "Federal Insurance Contributions Act." Also, SSA is entering into a congressionally mandated program of advising everyone annually of the benefits that would be payable based on the workers' contributions to the fund. The change that would be most helpful to the working man and woman would be establishing the OASDI trust funds on a pay-as-you-go basis. Such a change would reduce the individual's tax burden, and would make sure the funds were used only for the purpose for which they were collected rather than as a lending pool for the Treasury.

(Reprinted with permission from "Horizons," October 1994.) Politics, like much of life, is the art of compromise. However, when it came to the fiscal year 1995 appropriation for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the only compromise effected was of the people EEOC is supposed to protect. Public Law 103-317, signed into law by President Clinton, appropriates less money than the administration requested for the EEOC. This is not remarkable. What is rare is that the law, which was finalized in a conference between the Senate and the House of Representatives, appropriates less money than either chamber had approved for EEOC when acting on their own. In fiscal year 1994, which ended September 30, EEOC had been funded at $235 million. For the new year, FY '95, which started October 1, the Clinton administration requested EEOC be funded at $245.7 million. The House of Representatives appropriated $238 million. The Senate disagreed, appropriating $240 million. Nothing radical there. It looks like a slight increase over last year. (At worst, after accounting for inflation, EEOC will have about the same money it had last year.) The Senate and House will compromise at $239 million, right? Wrong! In conference the EEOC budget was cut to $233 million. Applying Congress' new math to the EEOC the average of plus 3 and plus 5 is minus 5 {(3 + 5)/2= -5}. Congress' new math computes a compromise between a net increase of $3 million (House of Representatives, $238 million) and an increase of $5 million (Senate, $240 million) is a reduction of $5 million ($233 million, amount actually appropriated). Try thinking of it this way: you can't decide whether to give your child and his/her friends three or five more cookies, so you take five off the plate! The Clinton administration accepted the results when it signed the bill into law. Whether the administration will submit a request for a supplemental appropriation and how hard it fights for such a bill remain to be seen. EEOC's workload is increasing, particularly on issues such as the Americans with Disabilities Act under which coverage expanded on July 26 to entities with 15 or more employees. The law covered entities with 25 or more employees beginning on July 26, 1992. Now, more, smaller employers are covered. On top of that, EEOC's backlog is already 85,000 charges (complaints)! EEOC's budget is very people-intensive. By far the largest chunk of the money goes for salaries and expenses. According to the most knowledgeable Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights under Law, as of this summer, EEOC had about 765 investigators working on 88,000 charges a year. The federal employee work year (after holidays and weekends are accounted for) is 243 days. Investigators generally spend at least a quarter of their time on charge intake, leaving about 183 days in the year for charge investigation. And from that you have to subtract sick leave and any other duties (as well as any training). The bottom line is that the average EEOC investigator has about a day and a half to spend on each charge! And if the investigator devotes that day and a half/charge, then the investigator will spend zero time addressing the backlog! At best, this is treading water. Appropriation bills rarely generate much attention. But in reality, the appropriation bill is where the political rubber meets the road. Hortatory rhetoric and legal mandates come face to face with the real world when dollars are appropriated. If dollars are not appropriated, legal mandates become hortatory rhetoric, empty unfulfilled promises of equality and services. The easiest thing to do here is to point blame: at specific members of Congress, at subcommittees, at the Clinton administration. But even if we were able to identify all the culprits in this mess, it would not solve the core problem. The true need is to recognize the financial reality: EEOC, despite its increasing workload, will continue to be underfunded. This will be the case, even if some added funding is obtained. Given the failure of Congress to appropriate adequate funding for EEOC so that the agency processes can work their mandated ways, the need is to turn to the substantive side of civil rights and create alternative governmental solutions, such as mandatory alternative dispute resolution by the EEOC, and more non- governmental solutions, such as private rights of actions without having to first file with EEOC! What about token fees (as exist for using national parks) for filing with EEOC? Bear in mind that to do anything means to open up for debate the basic issue of civil rights remedies, a sensitive political issue where recent resolve in the administration and Congress has resembled the backbone of an amoeba. Neither Congress nor the Clinton administration have had the wherewithal or resolve to fight for new civil rights remedies. Bills to lift the ceilings (caps) on damages in the Civil Rights Act of 1991 have been introduced and gone nowhere for the past several years. The math, new and old, in civil rights remedies totals a big nothing. Here's how your old math teacher, screeching chalk on the board, would write out the equations in proving this theorem of Congress and Clinton Civil Rights: Appropriations: The average of plus 3 and plus 5 is minus 5. Substantive/Remedies Reform: Zero plus zero equals zero. Bottom Line Total: Appropriation loss and no substantive changes equals less civil rights for more people. In other words, when all was said in Congress and the administration, the only ones really compromised were the very people -- women, minorities, persons with disabilities -- the laws were intended to protect. Is this the new math or politics as usual? Either way, it doesn't and shouldn't add up.