NFB-Newsline currently hosts more than 300 publications including more than 15 California newspapers and also includes a very comprehensive and user-customizable television listing capability. Also see detailed information below.

These two toll-free services are more than duplicative of the old service the LightHouse had operated. They are much more user-friendly, have massive content and are free.  What’s not to like?

Users of the LightHouse system will note its closure as of October 1st.  For further information or personalized help in setting up any new accounts, please feel free to contact Greg Kehret, Director of Access to Information at (415) 694-7349 or gkehret@lighthouse-sf.org

Society for the Blind-Access News

To hear a demonstration call toll free at (800) 665-4667 and enter user code 5555. For Advertisements enter 1 followed by 10 for Grocery Ads or 13 for Drugstore Ads.

Additional information can be found on-line at Society for the Blind.

Sign up as an Access News subscriber by telephone at (916) 732-4010.

NFB-Newsline

To hear a demonstration call toll free at (800) 665-4667, enter user number 000999 and security code 9999. Press 8 to get to TV Listings. The caller then can skip forward or backward from channel to channel by pressing 3 or 1. They can go forward or backward by time by pressing 4 or 6.

Instructions for using NFB-Newsline are available on-line, in large print and audio cassette.

If you are not yet a subscriber sign up now or call NFB toll free at 1-866-504-7300.

On a warm, sparkly day this spring, before the grey afternoons of this particularly cold SF summer set in, I trekked out to San Francisco State and sat at a picnic table with Paul. He was wearing a professor’s blazer and white running shoes, and he was seated in his power chair. I wore my huge sunglasses and perched on my mobility scooter with the bockety paint job. With the sun out, we were feeling altogether leisurely. I had been a bit nervous and somewhat embarrassed because I had yet to get to know Paul, even though I consider myself someone who is very involved in the disability community.

The LightHouse was one of the agencies that put together the 20^th anniversary celebration of the ADA event last month. Paul was a top choice to speak at the event, so I felt lucky to have an excuse to call him. My friend Amanda Hoffman, a documentary filmmaker who is making a film about blindness in the community, was a great friend of Paul’s, and she advised me to think of some corny jokes because he was a total punster. I chickened out after I dialed his number, and instead, just stuck to introducing myself as an information and referral specialist at the LightHouse. “And, on behalf of the LightHouse, I am on a committee that is planning an event for the ADA—.” He interrupted with, “I know who you are, Amber.” It turned out he had read some of my poetry online. This seemed incredibly generous to me, since I am sure Paul had hundreds of academic colleagues, anxious grad students and professionals in the disability field to keep on his radar.

While we sat basking in the sun that day, Paul asked me about my big sunglasses. I explained that I had recently become blind in my left eye and that glare, especially, made my eye more painful. He asked how that experience informed my work at the LightHouse, and in response, I told him how I love the conversations I get to have via my job—in person or over the phone—with people who are slowly transforming, moving from vision loss to an understanding of what it means to be new to blindness. But, I said, it is sometimes a confusing dialogue, in my head and with LightHouse clients and visitors. Like many of the LightHouse visitors, there are still many medical steps I must take on my journey with partial sight and a single day contains conflicting emotions—frustration over eye aches one moment and total excitement over the newest software for blind computer users in another. Paul responded with a long treatise on illness versus disability, on suffering and self-sufficiency. He expressed to me that he did not believe that the search for a cure needs to contradict the fight for disability rights. He also told me that it is not a paradox to acknowledge discomfort and at the same time foster disability pride. His thoughts were immensely helpful that day.

Paul was a methodical scholar. He explained that when he wrote a book, he carefully researched and polished a chapter before moving on to the next. And he did this with voice recognition software or sometimes with a pen in his mouth to tap the keys (after childhood polio, Paul no longer had the use of his hands). This is likely how he composed his first book—a respected biography of George Washington. And then he set it on fire. Paul became famous as an activist for burning his book in front of the San Francisco federal building in 1988—as a protest of the Social Security Administration. The meager royalties he could expect from an academic text were enough to threaten the SSA benefits Paul depended on his for his medical care, in particular, his ventilator.

In early July, Paul gave a lecture at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (SKI). His topic was on the way blind activists were the early forebears of the disability rights movement. Ever the consummate historian, he told a fascinating story at SKI that day about a little-known figure: Abram Courtney. Courtney was an itinerant blind peddler in 1835. He authored and self-published a pamphlet that he then began distributing while he traversed the country as a traveling salesman. His goal was to disprove the idea that the blind could not work and to inform people, in a friendly and anecdotal manner, about the blind via his writings. This was quite radical for 1835. He goes on to explain how one of the largest blindness organizations in the country was founded—long before ideas of equal rights or access were in place.

On July 26^th, Paul made a rousing final speech at the ADA event. He said, “Great leaders do not create great movements. Great movements give rise to great leaders,” and, “No movement can exist without, in this case, millions of ordinary men and women asserting themselves to demand dignity and their rights. So that’s what our movement is all about. That’s our past, that’s our present, that’s our future.”  Read the entire transcript or watch the video from this event at the Independent Living Resource Center’s blog: http://www.itsnormal.org/2010/08/for-paul-longmore-were-not-done-yet.html.

As the crowd was trickling out of the ADA event, I thanked Paul and we agreed to get coffee soon, to take up our conversation where we had left off. I wanted to hear more about Abram, maybe work it into a poem about the LightHouse’s history as a broom factory. I wanted to ask Paul what new trouble he was going to get into, what else he would set on fire. I promised I would have some jokes for him the next time.

A public service for Paul will be held October 23 at 2 p.m. at the Seven Hills Conference Center at San Francisco State. A reception will follow at 3 p.m.

Download this podcast to listen to Paul Longmore’s SKI talk on radical blind figures in history. Joshua A. Miele, Ph.D., Principal Investigator and Colloquium Committee Chair at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute facilitates the interview.

For more information please visit http://ddtp.cpuc.ca.gov/default.aspx?id=1075

Attached is a flyer announcing the Committee seat vacancy and the application.  Alternate formats of the flyer or application can be requested by contacting the Committee Coordinator at Voice (510) 302-1110, TTY: (510) 302-1150, VP (510) 545-4791 or send an e-mail to karen@ddtp.org

Application deadline: Friday, September 24, 2010.

Golden Gate Park

Saturday, October 2, 2010 10:00am–3:00pm

• Museum Tours

• Art Demos/Art-making Activities

• Art Slam 2010

• Performances

• Disability Culture Presentation

Sign language interpreters provided

Extra blue spaces for parking.

Requests for accommodations made by September 24 will help to ensure availability. Attendance to festival activities is free. Museum admission free with RSVP by September 27.

Information or RSVP: tbrown@famsf.org or 415-750-7645

Victor Reader Stream 101
First offering: October 11-22
Second offering: November 29–December 10
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
(with a break for lunch).
Contact: Leah Gardner, 415-431-1481 for participation eligibility and registration.