Re: a few complaints about the blind comunity
@Cx2,I do see a way out of this in the future sinse manifestly the government do not want to be paying out large somes of money on disability equipment either, but it will as Guitarman said take a change in expertees to recognize this fact.
I am actually going to steel this thought for the redraught of my thesis sinse one of the practical measures I do suggest to combat existing social prejudice against those categorized as disabled is the setting up of essentially a disability advocacy commission who have both skills in dealing with living with disabilities, and a certain amount of governmental power to exact compromises, rather like the business rights group acas. This is actually another job such a commission could undertake, sinse in having skills in dealing with disability (probably being made up of disabled people), they could additionally advise on these sorts of measures, just as for example when the chap asked on the forum the other day for games for his blind frien
d myself, Slj, and a good few other people with knolidge on the field of gaming sans eyeballs were able to inform him what was around.
@Guitarman, I find that all too believable. my university disability office actually told me "disabled people are not the best judges of what they can and can't do" so generally what I've done is largely circumvent them, making whatever arrangements I needed making myself, doing the mobility with my mum when I first got hear, working out equipment needs with the very nice education officer who streight out asked me what I needed (he was fantastic and saw my brother and I right through school).
Part of the problem, as in fact I've stated in my thesis is that disabled people are judged by a large percentage of the none disabled as incompitant. this includes judgements of their own compitancy. If I say "I am going to do x" this translates in the mind of a sighted person as "the silly blind man thinks he can do x but I know he can't"
This is why effectively I think there needs to be some sort of more strict governmental control over this, sinse the ultimate truth is people don't! know about disability and frequently don't trust disabled people to know about it either, but go on their own half baked notions.
To relate this back to access companies, one thing I have noticed in the Uk is the Rnib has a rather worrying relationship with certain companies, indeed it seems like the Rnib actually drumb up business for them, which is down right wrong. For example last month I was at the local hospital for my anual eyeball checkup. Behind me there was a newly blind fellow talking to his wife about talking watches. He was describing one he'd found in a catelogue (or at least been recommended from the catelogue), while his wife was stating that "the Rnib only sell those ones"
As it happened, I was actually wearing the watch that the c hap was describing. I forget the exact make and model number but it is a nice one,being stainless steel (thus fairly unbreakable), with small unobtrusive buttons, a none annoying voice and , and kept uptodate via satelite link, indeed I wore the same model to egypt in 2010 and it kept up with perfect time).
Much better than the usual black plastic and rubber affairs imho.
I let the chap and his mrs have a look at it, told them where I'd got one, and indeed answered several basic questions they had, in fact they were quite relieved to meet someone registered blind who lived alone, wandered around the country and was doing a doctorate sinse the poor chap had been quite an independent bloak before losing his vision and hadn't really been encouraged by the Rnib to go out and try things.
My point however is this is clearly a case where the Rnib were actively supporting only those companies they deem appropriate, much as they do with Azabat, which is a direc tly bad situation sinse it creates a very captive group of consumers and discourages people from going and finding out for themselves.
Again as I said, this is where having some expertees in disability would be a very helpful thing.
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