The Onion: Doesn’t taste so good now

Hi all.

“The Onion”, for these people who are unfamiliar, is “America’s finest news source”. Their website is at http://www.theonion.com.

Today, in the era of real TV captioning, it is now accessible to all, even Deaf people. Unfortunately, in the case of Internet TV, this is sadly not the case and must be fixed soon, because captioning has many benefits, including but not limited to:

• learning new languages by following the captions and talking
• if you don’t want to hear the sound, you can mute. But there needs to be an alternative to sound. What is it?

I viewed one of The Onion’s news stories as a video, and captioning is sadly non existent. I also think that in the USA where The Onion reside, it may be illegal to fail to caption these videos.

Please write a physical letter, call in, or e-mail The Onion asking them to rectify their mistake soon. I have called in and asked them to do that, leaving my e-mail for co operation.

Contact The Onion

If YOU did any of the above, you would be significantly contributing to the future of Internet TV. PLEASE caption any videos that you make first before uploading them in order to make another significant difference.

Thanks!

- Kyle Brooks

Powered by ScribeFire.

Tim Hortons: Are they being unfair?

Hey all.

One day I want to drive to Tim Hortons to get myself tea. So, I go into drive thru, and when I get there, I think about what I want. When it finally comes for me to tell Tim Hortons what I want, I can’t. I leave Tim Hortons with nothing at all.

Some assumptions here:

• I can only sign, or type!
• I have a car.
• I have my own home, and live alone.
• I can’t make my own tea for some reason.

Let us refer to TH’s guiding statement: “Our guiding mission is to deliver superior quality products and services for our customers and communities through leadership, innovation and partnerships. Our vision is to be the quality leader in everything we do.“

A few questions to you, the hearing person who may have not encountered this scenario:

• Are they delivering “superior quality services” for the Deaf community by being unfair?
• Are they being innovative or being a leader to the Deaf community by being unfair?
• Do you think that they have a partnership with some company or person to help out the Deaf community?
• Would customer satisfaction be important to you if you were part of a company that did this type of business? Also, would this scenario be “customer satisfaction”?

I leave it to you, the people, to decide for yourself whether this is or isn’t unfair treatment.

GA
- Kyle

Tubetorial: Do they caption their Internet videos?

Hi all.

Oh, if only I could say yes… Fortunately, I have sent a complaint to Tubetorial regarding that fact.

I will post correspondence from them until it’s all over, just like I did with PRHC.

Here is the full complaint (I will annotate to explain why I said what. Bolded text is the actual complaint, while non-bolded text is annotated):

–BEGIN
Kyle Brooks
Peterborough, Ontario
Canada

E-mail: cmpfixer@hotmail.com
Phone number: 888 823 5206
Website: http://allaboutbeingdeaf.blogspot.com

To whom it may concern:

I am sending this e-mail to you on the basis of a concern.

I am a deaf blogger. A certain Tubetorial video, “What Bloggers Need to Know about the Law”, located at http://www.tubetorial.com/what-bloggers-need-to-know-about-the-law/, does not have sufficient captioning for me to understand the video. Many other videos do not have sufficient captioning. I do not understand the video because I am deaf. I do not understand many TV shows because they are not captioned, and I get left out of the experience, so I end up switching the channel. (I’d complain, but I need some information for that, and when I watch TV, I am so concentrated in doing so that I don’t usually complain)

Captions are text presented on a video that allow a deaf or hard of hearing person to be able to understand the video and watch the video at the same time.

I feel this is unfair treatment to a deaf person and to the Deaf community as a whole. Would it be fair to a blind person if they could not understand what was going on because no one told them and refused to? Please immediately rectify this concern, or explain to me why captioning videos would be a undue hardship. “Undue hardship” means a severe burden: costly, extensive, etc.

Yours sincerely,
Kyle Brooks

END–

Deafness and being at a hospital: More information

Hi all.

I’d like to give you all more information about the hospital problem.

First off, the hospital in question is the Peterborough Regional Health Center.

Second off, I have sent an discrimination complaint to PRHC. I have saved it, and will follow up on any replies that they give me and will p ost them up.

The full text of the discrimination complaint is below:

–BEGIN

Kyle Brooks
Peterborough, Ontario
Canada

To whom it may concern:

I am sending this e-mail to you on the basis of an concern.

I am deaf, and I require a interpreter if I am sick and need to be at the hospital.

I was admitted to the Peterborough Regional Health Center around the first to second week of December. Upon admission, I did not receive a interpreter. I feel this is unfair treatment to a Deaf person and to the Deaf community as a whole.

Please immediately rectify this and immediately apologize to me for discriminating against a Deaf person.

Sincerely,

Kyle Brooks

END –

Thanks

Kyle Brooks

Deafness and being at a hospital

Hi all.

Well, as you know, I’m deaf.

I’ll admit one thing. It sucks to be deaf, especially when you are at a hospital without an interpreter.

I went to the hospital experiencing pain in my belly a few weeks ago. I had a DynaWrite (a communication device), but the doctors didn’t even use it. Well, some did, but that is not enough. All the doctors and nurses who see me should use the DynaWrite, but not all of them did. So did it get used very much? NOPE.

So, I obviously needed a interpreter. But, I didn’t get one. Yes, I know you have to pay a interpreter, but it is worth it when you have a deaf person like me going to the hospital. I have three!

The problem is that I live in a group home, and they are not willing to hire even one interpreter for me if I go to the hospital. Why won’t they? I can’t think of any plausible reason why! But they want me to communicate in my first language, which is ASL, so they hire a interpreter sometimes. I think that is a good reason to hire a interpreter. But, they didn’t… Why not? They could have hired the interpreter just before I went to the hospital! Or even a hour, or two hours! I don’t care how longer before. Just hire the interpreter for me!

The bottom line is that communication is important, and when you can’t communicate (some is not enough like I said), you get sooooooo frustrated that you just want to shout! And you don’t want me shouting, right? So why not make it easier on me and hire a interpreter? I seriously don’t get it!

Thanks

Kyle Brooks