As for myself, I was fully sighted until my thirties. Well, at age
twelve I started wearing glasses, but they corrected my vision to 20/20.
But your comments about taking a long time to adjust to changes in light
level reminded me of an incident that happened to me when I was losing
my eyesight. The point came that it took me a good half hour to
forty-five minutes to adjust to normal changes in light level. So one
day someone sent me on an errand to a bar. I had to discuss something
with the bartender. It was a very bright sunny afternoon. I parked my
car and walked to the door. Upon entering it was a complete blackout for
me. Bars keep the light low in the first place and it was not dark, but
to my failing eyes it was instantly as dark as a moonless midnight. So I
started walking in the direction to where I knew the bar to be with my
right hand held at waist level and palm out to catch any furniture or
other objects that I might have fallen over. Suddenly my hand
encountered something and I didn't know what it was. I just stood there
feeling it and trying to figure out what it was. It seemed to be fabric
covered, soft and kind of pointed. Then it hit me what I had hold of. I
immediately jerked my hand back and started stuttering apologies. What
did I have hold of? Well, the woman was sitting at a table and so I
suppose you can guess what would have been at my waist level. It appears
that I was an accidental groper.
_________________________________________________________________
J.K. Rowling
“ I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing
in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist! ”
― J.K. Rowling
On 12/17/2018 10:47 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Miriam,
Yes. I believed I was not visually impaired as a child. Even wearing
bifocals and not being able to read without them. Even not being able
to read the blackboards in class. Even having to stand for several
minutes against the wall when entering a dark room or a theater until
my eyes adjusted so I could make out shapes. Until I had a detached
retina at 17, and a blind man came to the door while I was recovering
from unsuccessful eye surgery and told me I could probably attend the
Washington State School for the Blind, I had never before considered
my eyes to be, "That Bad". Later my mother told me that the school
nurse had also suggested that I should attend the Sight Saver Program
at Warren Avenue school. My mother met with someone at the school and
toured the class. She told me many years later that she could not put
her son in a class of such weird children. Today if I had the same
amount of sight, I might be considered a very high partial, or mildly
visually impaired. But because of the cataract surgery I had at the
age of four, my eyes took a very long time to adjust to light changes.
I could not drive at night because the headlights of passing cars left
me in absolute blackness for several seconds. After the retina
surgery I had only one eye, which affected my depth perception. Not a
great deal, but enough that even though I took and passed driver's
training, I never applied for a driver's license.
Probably my sight was less dependable than I thought, but I believe,
looking back, that I made every effort to pass for "normal".
Once I became totally blind, I bent every effort to "look normal".
Those were my words at the time. I was afraid people would see me and
"know I was blind". So the NFB was a natural fit for me. Jacobus
tenBroek's speeches moved me, and Kenneth Jernigan's brilliance as a
promoter drew me right in. I owe the NFB a huge thanks for the
emotional support I received, and the connections that gave me entry
into my career in the field of work with the blind.
As an adult, I met a number of those children my mother thought were
so weird. And yes, some of them grew up to be weird adults. But they
are also my friends and associates in the struggle to ensure that
today's blind children are raised in a more positive environment, so
they avoid the ignorance that was the basis for their own behavior.
I will always thank my mother and dad for all that they did to assist
me in living the life I have lived. But even Saints have feet of
clay. In an effort to teach me to stand on my own two feet, my
mother...and to some extent my dad, implanted the impression that
being blind was something to be avoided at all costs. Of course the
sighted public also helped drive the message home.
But today, after a long wandering trip, I can honestly say that I am
every bit as good a human being as anyone...including Mother Teresa.
And so are you, Miriam.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/16/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
I was thinking about you and the fact that you've said that you were
visually impaired as a youngster. I'm not denying that fact, but from what
you've written, you were not nearly as disabled as I was as a child. My
early childhood memories are filled with visits to the eye doctor and eye
surgeries. And when I didn't have actual surgery, I was examined in an
operating room under ether because it was easier for the doctor to examine
my eyes when I was under anesthetic. I was profoundly affected by those
experiences. I was phobic, for one thing. I was terrified of shoe stores
because back then, shoe salesman wore light colored jackets and I thought
they were doctors. I was frightened of a lot of other things as well,
walking on a lawn, at one point. For years, in high school, college, and
graduate school, when I was in a class where certain medical conditions or
procedures were described, I'd feel faint and have to leave the room. At one
point, many years later, I was with my husband at a doctor's appointment and
I smelled ether and felt panicky. And I believe that having always seen
myself as different and damaged, had a very negative effect on my outlook on
life. You are upbeat. I am not. Of course, there are other things as well.
You're male and part of the white majority, and it is only in retrospect,
that you define yourself as a visually impaired child. But when you were a
child, you didn't see yourself as different or damaged. I'm female and knew
that I was a member of a minority group that was disliked by a majority of
Americans during my formative years. When you became blind, you joined an
organization that taught its members that blindness isn't a handicap, only a
nuisance, and that message was drummed into its members just as relentlessly
as Christianity was by the church you joined. But my first encounter with
blindness was when I was seven years old and my parents enrolled me for
piano lessons at the Lighthouse in Manhattan, and I then began attending the
children's recreation program. And within a year I went to the summer camp
run by the New York Institute for the Blind. I won't go into what that
summer camp was like because it would take too long to do so right now. But
as a naïve partially sighted child, encountering totally blind children,
some of whom were very weird, to put it mildly, for the first time, was a
shock. And it caused all kinds of identity issues which didn't become
resolved for decades.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2018 8:27 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The New York Times' Shameful Obituary of
Historian William Blum
In order to save costs, newspapers used very cheap paper and cheap ink. The
result was print that was not clean. It also rubbed off on
the hands. After going through a paper the size of the NY Times, or
the Seattle Times, my hands would be black. In 1945 I carried the Seattle
Star, a six day a week paper. No Sunday edition. After folding a paper and
tossing it onto the customer's porch, my shirt would come untucked and I'd
shove it into my pants. After about forty papers were delivered I headed
home. I can remember looking down at my shirt as I rounded the last turn
and heading for the door. Black!
My shirt front was black. I had not noticed it until I was just about home,
where I would encounter the wrath of my mother.
Of course she laid into me, telling me of how hard it was to keep running
the washing machine, and how I should think of all that when I was getting
my hands all dirty. Naturally I hadn't thought about it, or I wouldn't have
touched my shirt, thus avoiding the strong lecture and the slaps. But as an
adult I passed much of the blame back to mother...not that she had any
control over our poor income. But mother bought my shirts at the J. C.
Penney bargain basement and at a couple of dime stores that carried some
cheap clothing. Woolworth and Kress. I was long in the waist and the cheap
shirts had almost no shirt tail for tucking in. Because we had to be frugal
and buy on the cheap, I wore holes in my socks, holes in the soles of my
shoes, and wore my shirts and pants a second year. Since I was growing
straight up like a weed, by the end of the first year my sleeves were
already above my wrists, and my pants were above my ankles.
We lived in a very small, poorly built house on the side of a very steep
hill. A switchback path snaked up the hill from the highway, past our
kitchen door and on up to a dirt road above us. We did have a grand view of
Lake Union and beyond Capital Hill we looked at the snow capped Cascades.
That highway went from Canada to Mexico, highway 99. It sounded like an
angry river during the day. At least we lived high above it, out of range
of the fumes that blackened the houses along the sides. Growing up as a
visually impaired boy, long before anyone ever said, "visually impaired",
and being among the very poor in a community of upper middle Class families,
had its hard times, but it also toughened me up, something I would need in
later life.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/16/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I grew up as a legally blind person who couldn't see well enough to
read newspapers. Using a magnifying glass was too difficult, although
it helped with reading books. I suppose that the newsprint was too
small. At any rate, I always felt locked out of this really important
source of information until the CCTV reading machine was developed.
And then, I couldn't afford one until the Ethical Humanist Society to
which we belonged, loaned or gave me the money. I can't remember
which. But that must have been in the mid 1960's. And even then, the
newspaper was too unwieldy to put under the machine. A friend of mine
used to cut out articles for me. It took me a very long time to
discover that the newspaper wasn't necessarily a font of wisdom. One
of the podcasts I listen to is "Citations Needed", and it's all about
how we're manipulated by propaganda that is implanted in the points of
view of news stories. One of the hosts is a reporter for FAIR, which
is a media watchdog. Fair has a podcast called Counterpunch, a much
less sophisticated podcast about the media. But ever since I began
using the computer to read articles and even before I joined the Blind
democracy list, people were sending me material from alternative news
sources and I was also reading mainstream media stories and was able
to understand how facts can be emphasized or omitted so that my
opinions could be manipulated. After I began reading the material that
Sylvie was posting and also listening to Democracy Now, I began to
discover that I could trust certain journalists more than others, and
that I could listen to and read a number of articles about an issue, and
come to my own tentative conclusion about what the reality might be.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2018 11:05 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The New York Times' Shameful Obituary
of Historian William Blum
According to undocumented scraps of yellowed notes in my dad's folder,
a distant cousin was one of the founders of the New York Times.
Henry Jarvis Raymond (January 24, 1820 – June 18, 1869) was an
American journalist, politician, and co-founder of The New York Times,
which he founded with George Jones.
Obviously Henry Jarvis Raymond came from the wealthy, conservative
side of the family forest. The "Pure" Jarvis stock had been settled
in the Grafton, (West)Virginia since the mid 1750's...at least. They
were mostly working class. Farmers, miners and Trackers. But in
those days it was not uncommon to be the distant cousin of just about
everybody. I've mentioned that my several times Great Uncle was
Jefferson Davis. An aunt who lived in the Grafton area was Anna
Jarvis, founder of Mother's Day. My grandmother Jarvis' brothers,
Samuel and James Hickman, and a cousin John Hickman were all pastors
of large congregations. But my direct linage consisted of miners,
loggers, farmers and Radicals. Searching back to John Jarvis, a
farmer in (West)Virginia, I seem to be the first Jarvis in that line, who
attended college.
But back to the New York Times. It was nicknamed, "The Gray Lady". I
used to buy a copy at the news stand on my way home from the Drapery
Factory. If I found a seat on the bus, I'd read the Editorial section
and leave most of the paper on the bus. The majority of the NY Times
was about as bland as the Seattle Times(no connection) only bigger.
Going back to the mid 1950's, I can't figure out how that paper earned
the label of Liberal Press. For much of my youth, I trusted the major
papers, believing that they reported All the news. But as I grew up,
I saw how the Press could manipulate the news, and which news was
published, and which was not. I saw honest, caring people crucified
because they held different opinions than those of the Nation's
Masters. I saw my name and my fiancee's name(later my wife,
Cathy)dragged through the Seattle PI. I watched as close friends of
my parents were labelled Communists, and fired from their jobs. And
later, I watched as close friends of Cathy's and mine were attacked by
so called investigative reporters, and left wounded by the side of the
road. I learned to never trust a word I read until I have proof that it
represents factual information.
Seldom has the Working Class had a national Public Platform, a
People's Press.
And the experiment called PBS has been corrupted by the private sector
until it no longer, if it ever did, represents the voice of the people.
If we are going to fight for Truth, then we must explore everything we
hear.
Find the source. Learn what is driving the people behind the news.
Engage one another in dissecting the day's news. Find out why certain
news reports are not put forth.
Protecting our freedom is constant hard work. Not that we should turn
our backs on the joys of life, but we must be aware that if we do not
maintain a free press, we will lose what free choice we still have.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/15/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, there are two things to consider in relation to this. First,
the guy who wrote the obituary is not a Liberal. He's a Conservative.
Second, if the New York Times were ever a liberal paper, it changed
quite a while ago, certainly by the time it unquestioningly supported
W. Bush's story about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Actdually,
I think perhaps there's a third point to make, which is that probably
The New York Times was never as liberal as everyone thought it was.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2018 5:11 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The New York Times' Shameful Obituary
of Historian William Blum
So Donald Trump believes the Press is Liberal?
Carl Jarvis
On 12/15/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The New York Times' Shameful Obituary of Historian William Blum
Jens Schott Knudsen / Flickr
You know you’ve lived well-well enough to rattle the
establishment-when the New York Times smears you in the obituary it
runs about you (FAIR.org, 6/20/13).
That distinction was achieved by William Blum, historian and critic
of US foreign policy. Once a State Department computer programmer
who aspired to “take part in the great anti-Communist crusade,” he
quit government in
1967 out of disgust with the Vietnam War and became a founding
editor of the Washington Free Press, one of the first alternative
papers of the New Left.
In books like The CIA: A Forgotten History (re-released as Killing
Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II) and
Rogue
State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, Blum documented the
violent and anti-democratic record of the US empire; he was a
reference that FAIR frequently turned to when noting what was
missing from the corporate media’
s version of history.
How did the New York Times (12/11/18) frame this remarkable life?
With this remarkable headline:
William Blum, US Policy Critic Cited by bin Laden, Dies at 85
Yes, to the Times, the most important thing about Bill Blum’s life
is that Osama bin Laden once remarked to Americans, in a tape
released from hiding, that Rogue State would be “useful for you to
read.”
“Blum denounced the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New
York and Washington,” obituary writer Sam Roberts acknowledged, “and
said he would not want to live under an Islamic fundamentalist regime.”
But, Roberts scolded,
“
he did not disavow the recommendation or express regret that bin
Laden, the orchestrator of those attacks, shared his disdain for the
policies carried out by the department where he had once worked.
It’s unclear what formulation Roberts was looking for from Blum;
should he have denied that his book would be “useful…to read,” or
wished aloud that bin Laden had been a supporter of the State
Department policies? There are certainly some policies where you’d
find the State Department, Al Qaeda and the New York Times on one
side, and Blum on the other-such as the invasion of Afghanistan that
bin Laden hoped to provoke with the 9/11 attacks, and the protection
of Idlib, Al Qaeda’s last stronghold in Syria, from Syrian
government attack. Should the Times “express regret” that it finds
itself on the same side as the 9/11 orchestrators? The editors would
no doubt protest that they backed the invasion of Afghanistan and
the defense of Idlib for very different reasons than Al Qaeda would,
but that’s a distinction that they don’t grant their ideological
enemies.
If it wanted to give a better sense of the relationship between
William Blum, the US foreign policy establishment and Islamic
extremism, it might have noted that it was William Blum who spotted
and translated (with David
Gibbs) the interview Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s
national security adviser, gave to the French publication Le Nouvel
Observateur (1/15/98). In the interview, Brzezinski boasted of
launching a secret program in 1979 to undermine the government of
Afghanistan, a covert operation that he correctly predicted “was
going to induce a Soviet military intervention.” Asked by the
interviewer, “Do you regret having supported the Islamic
fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?”
Brzezinski responded:
“
What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or
the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the
liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?
When Brzezinksi died in 2017, his New York Times obituary did not
bear the headline, “Brzezinski, Official Who Boasted of Promoting Al
Qaeda, Dies at 89″-though surely that is more relevant to
Brzezinski’s legacy than bin Laden’s book review is to Blum’s.
The Blum obit achieved what former FAIR staffer Peter Hart described
as “peak NY Times” with this petty put down:
“
He also reiterated his unpopular, but not unique, position that
American intervention abroad had been breeding enemies and inviting
terrorism.
It’s not clear how “unpopular” Blum’s views were-in a 2013 YouGov
poll,
61 percent agreed with the statement, “In the long run, the United
States will be safer from terrorism if it stays out of other countries’
affairs”
-but what is certainly “not unique” was the Times’ attempt to use an
obituary to settle ideological scores.
Jim Naureckas / FAIR
#al qaeda #cia #jimmy carter #killing hope #new york #new york times
#osama bin laden #
