Tuesday Topics

We have been threatening for the last couple of programs to spend a program discussing White Cane Safety Day and its related laws. It now appears that the time for that has come! All over the country agencies and organizations of people who are blind cooperate to create awareness of folks who are blind on White Cane Safety Day. What impact do these activities have? What impact do White Cane Laws h...

Tuesday Topics has welcomed ACB'S Employment Committee in the past and are happy to welcome some of them again this week. Peter Altschul, Melanie Sonohui and Carrie Muth will be our guests. The committee has been very busy since we last had them on. They have been creating podcasts, collecting and spreading job announcements and, now, they have released a survey that they would like us to know abo...

Remember to join us for Tuesday Topics! have a guest who runs a cruise assistance business and exhibited at ACB this Summer! We are heard From 7 to 9 PM on Tuesday September 26 cruising will be served on Tuesday Topics. You are invited to sit at the captain's table and bring with you stories both droll and drear of your experiences on the rolling sea, preferably aboard a ship! How is cruising for...

Tuesday Topics will explore people who are blind and college. What was it like for you to decide to go to college. Was it intimidating? Did you live in the dorm? How was that adjustment? Were you treated well and fairly at College? What was the worst thing about college for you? What was the best thing about college? Was college worth it? What would you change about your college experience at coll...

We have a habit on this program of biting off more than we actually chew. This happened with our last program. We ended up spending a lot of time talking about going back to school and really did not get to Labor Day. Even though it's a little late, we thought it might be of interest to see what people think of Labor Day as a holiday. Is it something that folks value because of unions? Have you be...

What memories do we have about going back to school? Many people who are blind went to schools for the blind. Was going back a happy thing or was it sad? If you were mainstreamed, was the end of the Summer a good thing or a bad thing? What was your Summer like when you were growing up? Were you lonely? Were there things you looked forward to each Summer? Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics...

It is our intention to make this edition of Tuesday Topics an occasion where those who knew Oral Miller who died on August 6 could come and share some memories of his life and work. Oral lived to the age of ninety and made contributions to people who are blind in a variety of ways. He was the fourth President of ACB. He served only one term because he chose to go to work for ACB as its national re...

We will spend time exploring some Federal actions. Most of our time will be spent exploring the adoption of a final rule by the Architecture and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB). This Board has been operational for more than half a century and is responsible for overseeing regulations that assure that people with disabilities are fully included in society through the adoption of ru...

It is a common thing for Tuesday Topics to bite off more than it can chew. We did it again last night! We thought we were going to spend an hour talking about our experiences with radio and then move on to other things. Not so much! We spent a truly fun two hours romping together through the past of radio and us! If you missed the show, catch the repeats or the podcast! It was great fun! However,...

This week we are going to discuss a topic that we hope will be of some interest to many blind and visually impaired people. From the time I was three years old in 1948, radio had become a critical part of my life. I don't think I am alone. I lived outside the United States for many years and listened to short wave radio even more asiduously than I had listened ! AM radio in the US and Canada befor...

Tuesday Topics will explore seasonal issues on ACB Media One and live on zoom. We are hearing a lot about the heat! How is that affecting people who are blind! Does climate change have special issues that apply ! people who are blind or have low vision? What are the issues and what should ACB be doing about them? Hotels are more expensive; plane fares appear to be higher; Covid has impacted the wa...

It is really crucial that many of you join us because we are going to explore an issue that will become increasingly important over the next few years. During the ACB convention just completed the Braille Revival League sponsored a session that allowed those who were there to at least get to touch a new device that is being developed by the American Printing House for the Blind and Humanware. The...

Last week Tuesday Topics took a look at the convention as a whole. We think there is more to cover from ACB 2023 and propose considering three specific concerns surrounding this event. First, what was the new tech that was shown at the exhibit hall. What should folks look for in the future from some of our more established companies? We will review some of the new stuff and look ahead to a couple...

After a period away, Tuesday Topics is overjoyed to be back. You can probably guess what our topic will be. Every year we utilize our first presentation after the convention to provide our sense of how the convention went. While our opinions are important, your views as our listeners are even more important. Brian, Maryann, Larry, Rick and Paul all attended the convention in person. We want partic...

In around 2004 a new phenomenon arrived that was to alter the technology scene. As with so many developments, there was a question of whether the idea would catch on. Now, twenty years after their first appearance, podcasts have become hugely popular, amazingly diverse and immensely entertaining. We think there are a lot of people who are blind who do not listen to podcasts. We want to tell you ab...

On this show we are going to explore some of the impacts both negative and positive of the end of the COVID era. What happened to people who are blind during Covid? We isolated; we used technology to survive; we virtually stopped traveling; we used technology to create our new communities. What impact did all those elements have? Are we less comfortable going out now? How have stores and businesse...

Yes, Janet Dickelman, our irreplaceable convention coordinator, will be our guest tomorrow on Tuesday Topics. Illinois is getting close! Registration is open! Many tours are filling up fast! It may even be a little tricky to get rooms if you are staying before or after the convention. Janet has the knowledge and experience to guide us through all the convention variables. There will be lots of tim...

Tuesday Topics has been planning for quite a long time to do a whole show on cruising and that will happen before the end of the Summer. For now, though, we thought it might be fun to do a show about traveling as a person who is blind. We hope that old hands will talk about getting ready for convention travel. We hope that guide dog users will tell folks what preparations they make before conventi...

Isolation, technology and COVID are discussed. The impact of the way our lives have changed because of technology is the central concern of this week's Tuesday Topics. And it may well be that the problem we discuss have gone on for a much longer time than the point that the covid pandemic arrived. Technology has allowed us to get to lots of information on the internet. It has allowed us to make &q...

As often seems to happen with our program, we only got one of our two major issues covered this time. So our next program will look at how the various notions of information affect the field of blindness! It is a little frightening to suggest that that the field of blindness and visual impairment is rife with misinformation. But why should we expect anything else? ACB and NFB have their own versio...

We are going to explore a question that may seem beyond the scope of our program. Over the past few months we have spent quite a lot of time discussing chat bots. Recently we have seen lots of evidence that they can get things amazingly wrong in terms of information. Our friend Jonathan Mosen reported that he and his partner Bonnie were described as having been married for the past thirty years. T...

How well did voting work last year at ACB? What changes, if any, can we look forward to this year? How did people vote who were at the convention? Did many need assistance? How did affiliate voting work? Are there going to be any changes in how affiliates vote this year? What do we know about who voted? Everybody voted digitally. We know that but what proportion of the vote was done by folks who w...

Don't miss a chance to choose from three issues! Several weeks ago Tuesday Topics asked all of you to come up with subjects for us. However, we indicated that we would put together a series of topics in case our listeners did not come up with discussion issues. We did not have to use those ideas then so we will now offer three of them for this week's Tuesday Topics. What piece of technology would...

Remember to join us when David Trott is our guest on Tuesday Topics! During that period, we will invite David Trott to share with us a notion of where ACB is financially and in terms of membership. During the in-person segment of ACB'S recent meetings in Alexandria Virginia those present were invited to talk about membership and money. That element was moderated (David Trott. We will explore what...

Ever since he was a student at university, Eric Bridges has been active in ACB. For much of his career he has worked for ACB. For the last several years Eric has been ACB'S Executive Director. Virtually all the members of ACB are almost certainly aware that Mr. Bridges has been chosen to become the Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind. His last day at ACB will be March 21, a...