While Apple has announced a new Apple TV and movie rentals on iTunes, now more than ever it’s high time they made sure that all their video content is closed captioned. With the writers’ strike affecting television programming and more people switching to downloadable content, let’s not take a huge step backward by delivering a huge mess of inaccessible content over the Internet! The ADA does not require Internet deliverables to be closed-captioned because the ADA was drafted before the Internet, but the spirit of the law is to ensure that people have access to media, and since most movies and television shows have already been captioned for legacy media, it shouldn’t be difficult to deliver those captions along with new media. Apple has put the technology in place for the viewing of closed captions in iTunes, QuickTime, and iPods. The next step is actually selling and renting closed-captioned videos!
Tag: opinion
Opinion, provocative, editorial, perspective, call-to-action, soapbox, pet peeves, prescriptive…
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Super Bowl Broadcast Proves Sign Language Underestimated
I was excited to hear that Marlee Matlin would be signing the American National Anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) at Super Bowl XLI, but was disappointed to see her on television only during the phrase “the bombs bursting in air.” Whatever happened to the “signer in the bubble”? I would think they could put an Academy Award-winning deaf actress in a picture-in-picture “bubble” so that her performance of our National Anthem could be enjoyed throughout the duration of the song. Apparently, the director of the televised broadcast underestimated ASL and its many users.
I would like to believe that in the year 2007, accessibility for deaf people and the beauty of ASL would be esteemed by American society. Sadly, the Super Bowl XLI broadcast reminds me that American Sign Language and Deaf Culture are still relegated to a momentary side show.
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Sad story on NPR made me cry
Yesterday I heard this story about girls with obstectric fistulas in Ethiopia on NPR. It was so sad, I called Andy to share my grief, and when he answered, I was so choked up I couldn’t even speak. I wish that ignorance and lack of access to resources didn’t cause such awful things to happen anywhere in the world.
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Happy Chanukah – 7th Night
Happy Chanukah – 7th Night
Originally uploaded by danielgreene.I find it challenging to do anything "religiously" (i.e. "consistently," pun intended), and remembering to take a photo of the chanukiah each night of Chanukah this year was no exception. It’s enough just to remember to light the candles (or, in this case, turn the light bulbs) each night at sundown, much less remember to take a photo of it after dark. So, forgive me for only offering the first and second nights, and the seventh (and if I remember tonight) the eighth nights.
I decided to take this one with my better camera, and I went for a different angle this time because I liked the way the lights were reflected not once but twice in the dual-pane window.
On another note, (more…)
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We’re not afraid to say it: Happy Chanukah!
We’re not afraid to say it:
Happy Chanukah!
Originally uploaded by danielgreene.Our home’s chanukiah (the proper term for a Chanukah menorah) on the first night of Chanukah. It’s displayed prominently in the front kitchen window, facing the street.
The title of this photo is a reference to some Christian people’s response to secularism, in particular, a BBQ restaurant sign in Nashville, TN I photographed that said, "We’re not afraid to say it: Merry Christmas!"
By the way, those are multicolored LED Christmas lights reflecting off the chrome of the chanukiah. We are an "interfaith" couple; besides, I grew up celebrating Christmas in a secular or, let’s be honest about it, pagan way. What’s all the fuss about anyway, folks? Don’t know know why Christmas, Chanukah, and Ramadan are all around the same time? They are religious overlays to a pagan foundation of celebrating the winter solstice! If you ask me, we’re all just trying to cheer ourselves up by lighting candles, stringing lights, and giving gifts at this, the darkest and coldest time of the year.
Daniel Greene 