Tuesday Topics

# We will discuss how moving affects people who are blind; advantages people who are born blind have over those who lose their vision later in life; April Fool’s Day tricks; and Easter traditions.

Last week I completed the sale of my house in Miami. This was sort of traumatic for me and it has led me to ask how well those of us who are blind deal with change. I know I have found relocating to Jacksonville somewhat difficult. How is it for other people who are blind? Call in and tell us. What can we do to make it easier? What is hardest about leaving an environment you have grown accustomed...

# Perhaps the most valuable awards offered by the American Council of the Blind, at least in monetary terms, are the Durward K. McDaniel award and the Morgan-Chase Leadership Fellows award. Tuesday Topics this week will hear from members of the committee that oversees these awards. We will hear from some of the winners and what they have been up to since winning the awards and, along the way, we w...

My guest is Anisio Correia whose name may not be all that familiar to all of you. He was born in Portugal, has been blind all his life, I think, and has managed to have a distinguished career during which he served people who are blind for the most part. What is it like coming to a new country? What was it like to be blind in Portugal? Why serve people who are blind? How have services changed  dur...

This week I would like to propose three ideas for your delectation. If you find none of them delectable, we will be in serious trouble. However, you have not let me down yet! First, I thought it might be of interest to explore our experiences with books that feature blind people. My experience suggests that literature has contributed some to the attitude of society to those of us who are blind. Ho...

# Over the past year, there has been a lot of change in the way that the American Council of the Blind shows itself to the world. Our web site is quite new and is meant to appeal as much to those who seek us out as to those of us who are members. Last year, ACB Media arrived! What is it? What can be access there? Why have we focused away from individual elements like blogs, radio, and podcasts to...

braille as our subject. Braille is the medium used by many people who are blind to read and write. It also represents the initials of one of the affiliates of the American Council of the Blind, the Braille Revival League. We will talk about that organization and what it is doing. The Perkins Braille Writer is seventy years old. Many of us would have said it was older than that! We will talk a litt...

This week we will get a chance to review the year that was and look forward to the year that is ahead with Eric Bridges who is Executive Director of the American Council of the Blind. With Eric will be Clark Rachfal who leads our legislative effort at the capitol. This is Clark's first appearance on Tuesday Topics so we will find out some about his background. He is an avid fitness person so I sus...

# Meet some of the members of the ACB awards committees; award recipients; and learn about the people for whom some of the awards are named. How are winners chosen? How can you become involved in the awards process? Recipients must be nominated to receive an award. Thus, you are an invaluable part of the awards process.

Last week we talked about some of the characteristics of last year. However, we did not come close to discussing all the elements of last year. 2020 seemed like a year when race relations took some steps forward. How was 2021? What did ACB accomplish in 2021? How has service delivery to newly blinded people changed with COVID? What about school for children who are blind? We heard nothing about mu...

This is a reminder for you not to miss being a part of evaluating 2021 now that it's gone! Tuesday Topics will happen for the first time in 2022 on January 4 from 7 to 9 PM. It will in fact be our third attempt to talk about the year that will be was by the time we do the program. Without my knowledge, the Tuesday Topics folks and other friends of mine decided that it would be nice to do an issue...

# This week, many friends of Paul Edwards gather to wish him a happy 76th birthday. This was a big surprise to Paul and it turned out to be a wonderful and memorable 2 hours.

tonight, then, will be New Year's Resolutions! What can we do in advance to make it more likely we can actually make them more than remembrances of things past was March? What are good resolutions? Have you made some resolutions which you have kept religiously or which you have spectacularly failed to keep? We want to hear about your Resolutions History! If we exhaust this topic, I thought it migh...

# I thought it might be fun to see if folks have run across particularly cool presents for blind people this year. I will talk about a few but would welcome calls from sellers of products or folks who have thought of or bought cool presents.

First, welcome back to the co-chairs of the Audio Description Project Committee, Kim Charlson and Carl Richardson. They have both been guests in the past and have kept you informed of what the ADP Committee is up to at various points over the last year. Paul also welcomes Barry Cronin, who will be playing a major role in the gala. These three folks know more between them about audio description th...

# Get your holiday shopping done. Hear about current ACB affiliate fundraisers and from Leslie Spoone about the upcoming holiday auction.

All of our discussions will center around holidays! How do blind people feel about Halloween? How do blind parents handle the holiday? What about blind children? What was your experience as a child with Halloween? Did you like it? Were you nervous about it? Did you like parties better than trick or treating? And then there are other holidays! Thanksgiving! Christmas! Easter! Valentine's day! How a...

# Are we being protected by white cane laws? How should we handle white cane safety? October is also Disability Employment Awareness Month. The employment rate for people who are blind remains at 30 percent, leaving 70 percent of people who are blind not employed. Why is that? Can anything be done to fix it?

During the first hour I want to talk about the new wave of covid 19. Is it different from the earlier one? Is our country handling it well? Has it affected people who are blind more? Where do we think we go from here? When we are through with the discussion of the pandemic, I am going to try something very different! I suppose we could call it open mike. The idea is that we will let those of you w...

Join Paul to provide your feedback on this year’s ACB convention and for a discussion on state and special-interest affiliates. Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

# This week we are continuing last week’s discussion with the same group of folks about our constitution and bylaws. They will be able to report to us what happened during the meeting of the Constitution and Bylaws Committee last Thursday. We will only go for an hour, allowing folks to attend the final  meeting of the groups that are discussing the changes to our governing documents in preparation...

Episode Notes Tuesday Topics welcomes committee members about the constitutional changes that we will be considering on the 14th. From the Constitution and Bylaws committee we have Dan Spoone and John McCann. From the Voting Task Force we have Jeff Thom, Patrick Sheehan and Koni Simms. Our two hour program should give us enough time to not only get a clear idea of what the proposals are and are no...

On Tuesday Topics this week, I would like to do some dreaming while we are awake! ACB is working in lots of areas now! However, there may well be an area that you would like to see our organization concentrate on. What might that be? Maybe you would like more particularity on an issue that ACB is already working on! Perhaps you think there is a huge gap with an issue that ACB really needs to focus...

# I thought it might be interesting to talk about a question that is widely debated by people who are blind and also by people with other disabilities. Despite the passage of the ADA and the Rehab Act, the unemployment rate among people who are blind remains quite high. In fact it does not appear to have changed significantly over the last thirty years. Why is that? What can we do to change it? Is...

# There have been a few times in my life when I have sat in a bar for a long time because the conversation was just too good to miss! My guest on Tuesday Topics this week was responsible for a conversation that started in a bar, continued through dinner and ended much later outside in the late evening. My guest has three books on BARD, at least. He has won the Ned E. Freeman award and has probably...