May 2007 Issue

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From Sanjay Prasad, Bombay, India:

I was thrilled to read the article, "The Fire Next Door," in the January issue of the Ziegler and to know that a blind man could save a person's life. I shared this article with my friends and colleagues. They were all taken aback. They all ask one question: Is it true? I am equally surprised.

Please let me know as soon as possible if this is fiction or reality so that I can tell the truth to my friends.

[Editor's Note: Both People magazine and the Christian magazine Guideposts reported this as a true story. I reprinted "The Fire Next Door" because I believe it is not only true, but also important to the way we think about blindness. The hero in this story had vision loss as well as invaluable qualities of character: a sense of responsibility to help someone in danger, intrepid courage and presence of mind.]

From Bette Minall, Charlotte, NC:

Several Readers Forum letters reminded me of my three summers at Camp Wapanacki. It was a great stroll down memory lane.

The summer that stays green in my mind was the year several fun-loving college girls crept down the cabin line arranging the water faucet so that the water sprayed through the open screen windows onto our beds. Cabin by cabin, we all took to the path in our nightclothes, screaming and giggling. The college girls stayed well ahead of us, giving us verbal signals as we ran barefoot up the path, banging into the rough log rails along the way.

We eventually slid and stumbled down stairs, through bushes and around trees. The screaming intensified, scaring Dr. Mitchell, the camp director. His wife came out to stem the flood of girls pouring through the camp. Dr. Mitchell was afraid the boys from the scout camp across the lake had invaded our girls' camp. He all but had a heart attack.

We loved the adventure of it all. I determined right then and there that I would attend the college from which these female counselors had come. Any school that turned out such fun people, who thought blind girls were savvy enough to track them in the dark, was my kind of place to study and learn. Keuka College gained a loyal student that great night.ate. I declared this practice is discrimination. I would like some feedback from Ziegler readers on this troubling and complicated matter.

From Clayton Jacobs, Phoenix, AZ:

I would appreciate some assistance from readers in finding employment. Most jobs--in the Phoenix area, at least--can only be obtained through networking. Fortunately for sighted people, this is effective, but for those who are blind or have other disabilities, networking is inefficient because too few people actually know what we are able to do and, sadly, many employers are uneducated about how to deal with disabilities. Thus, we have hardly any chance to find employment.

I am angry with the attitudes of the National Federation of the Blind and American Council of the Blind. It's time that these advocacy groups stop battling over minor issues and focus on the complex flaws pertaining to the Americans with Disabilities Act, such as employers' ignorance.

I would like to discuss particularly the discrimination I have faced as a churchgoer, and bring it to the attention of other churchgoers. About a year ago, I was baptized and confirmed as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My whole life turned around for the better.

The Church has a vocational rehabilitation program known as Desert Industries. I tried to apply, and was told that, because of my visual impairment, I could not obtain training. I have gone round and round this issue with my bishop. Next, I was interested in serving a full-time mission. I was excited. But my bishop told me that he had called someone in Salt Lake City and because of new "standards" I could not serve a mission. I asked about the standards. They told me that missionaries are judged by weight and health conditions, and those with a disability cannot participate. I declared this practice is discrimination. I would like some feedback from Ziegler readers on this troubling and complicated matter.

From Blaine Deutscher, Calgary, Canada:

I'm not sure how many Ziegler readers have received JAWS 8.0, but I find this new version is wonderful. JAWS can read to me in a human-like voice. It is nice for editing documents and for reading text that I have scanned. If anyone does not have JAWS 8.0, I recommend they go to one of the following Web sites to purchase one: in Canada, www.aroga.com; in the United States, www.freedomscientific.com.

I would like to know what other readers think of JAWS 8.0. Please send e-mail to b.m.deutscher@sasktel.net.

From Gayle Sabonaitis, Worcester, MA:

Much has been made of braille literacy, but absolutely nothing is said about reading if the blind person is also deaf and has impaired touch. I am such a person. I cannot read braille for too long because I get very tired. I can read short letters and short articles.

I am still active and continue to do mission work by making rosaries. I just want to make people think about others who have trouble reading. I would like to hear from any reader who would like to discuss this issue.

Gayle Sabonaitis, St. Mary's Health Center #500, 39 Queen St., Worcester, MA 01610

From Olivia Ferrante, Revere, MA:

I read your March issue from cover to cover, and it was tremendously interesting--especially the letter from Grover Cleveland.

I read the braille version. Braille gives blind people true literacy. I was a teacher of blind people. You cannot learn spelling and punctuation, let alone sentence structure, if you only use audiotape. Only print or braille provides this.

From Byron Sykes, Louisville, KY:

After reading the March issue about how the Ziegler was founded, I'd be curious to know if a braille press was set up in New York to produce the magazine.

[Editor's Note: Yes--we quickly acquired and set up a braille press in New York City in September 1907, according to the following excerpt from our history, A Most Noble Benefaction:

By 1907, Walter Holmes, the editor, had determined that the best way to produce large quantities of embossed pages would be to modify a regular rotary printing press--remember he was a newspaper man. He had ascertained that such modifications were feasible, but could not be completed in time for the first issue of the Ziegler. By summer of 1907, the magazine had purchased one press, and a second press was bought that September along with machinery to bind the magazine. This equipment was installed in the magazine's first home on Manhattan's Eighth Avenue and 53rd Street, where a four-room loft was rented.

The Ziegler Magazine's embossing plant was by far the largest in the world. One estimate indicated that it could turn out in one day as much work as would require 320 men and 140 machines by the methods then used in England. Indeed, if the English method had been used to produce the Ziegler, a single month's edition would have kept two men and one machine busy for two years. The magazine was revolutionary not only in its conception, but also in its manufacturing techniques.

At first, raised-dot reading materials could be embossed on only one side of the page, since there was no way to emboss dots on the second side without crushing the first set of dots. This remained true in the United States until the 1920's. But as early as 1914 the Ziegler plant had constructed ingenious machinery for two-sided (interpoint) printing that halved the bulk of each monthly issue. While the dots produced were not of a high enough quality to be used for books, they were perfectly suited to something as ephemeral as a magazine.]

From Carl Jarvis, Quilcene, WA:

Sometimes we overlook the little gifts.

It was in 1965 that I became totally blind and began teaching myself braille. Someone in my church found a braille King James Bible and proudly delivered the huge set of books to my doorstep. After struggling with the good King's English for a period of time, I became rather discouraged. Then another friend told me about the Matilda Ziegler Magazine. Matilda became my braille lesson book for the next several years. I eagerly read her from cover to cover just to practice my new language.

Later I moved on to such readings as Isaac Asimov and Philosophy Today, and for a number of years, Matilda slipped out of my life. But when I began teaching braille at Washington State's Department of Services for the Blind, I once again turned to Matilda, along with a number of other braille magazines, to assist my students in their lessons.

At some point Matilda and I lost touch with each other, but after many years, I have invited her into my home again. It's like discovering an old friend after a long absence. Once again, Matilda keeps my pokey braille chugging along. What a wonderful gift to us blind folks.

From William and Sally Benjamin, Tallahassee, FL:

Thank you for this month's edition of the Ziegler, and for all the past ones too. Everywhere I go in the blind community, there are good thoughts about your publication. Now that the magazine is 100 years old, it is great to hear the history.

From John Dragona, Cliffside Park, NJ:

I was surprised by the letter from President Bush in the March Readers Forum, referring to us as "people who are blind" and not as "the blind," which I've always known to be a window covering. I am a person who happens to be a male, an author, a husband and father--to name a few--and by the way, I also happen to be blind.

We often complain that people who are sighted have misguided assumptions about the limitations they perceive to be secondary to our blindness, while some even ridiculously assume that we can't do anything without sighted assistance. Yet we help to perpetuate that myth by identifying ourselves as being "blind" upfront while making skimpy attempts to prove differently.

So, how can we rectify that? We can start by watching our own language if we really want to be accepted as equalsdespite our minor differences. If all of us, including sighted people, recognize ourselves as "people" or individuals who happen to be blind, those who are not visually impaired will also focus on our capabilities and not on our disabilities. Would it be so terrible were we to put our racial, religious and physical differences in the background?

I've read flippant and sarcastic comments to the contrary in the Ziegler, and do not deny the people who wrote those comments the right to disagree with me. But when I was studying for my graduate degree in rehabilitation counseling at New York University, the literature was permeated with logical rationales for my insistence on the aforementioned terminology. So, continue calling yourself a window covering if you wish --I am a person who happens to be...

From a reader in Louisiana:

The telegraphone answering machine mentioned in the March 1907 issue of the Ziegler sounded interesting. I wonder if it went into general use, for blind people or anyone else.

It must have been a very different world for everyone in 1907, especially blind people--no Internet, no National Library Service talking book program, no SSI check, no National Federation of the Blind or American Council of the Blind. But the March articles made me think that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The problems with railway deaths in 1907 could happen with any form of modern transportation. As for the piece mentioning Japanese children in San Francisco schools: What a condescending remark, to say these "little people," though they might not say much, "are doing a lot of thinking."

I wonder what the average blind person did back then. Surely some avenues were open to them. Of course, with unemployment at 70-75 percent, we are not terribly better off today. We do have a better support network nowadays.

To come back to the history of the Ziegler--Walter Holmes sounds like an especially nice guy, but I was irked when he called the blind "afflicted" in his letter. The circumstances of his death are mysterious. Did he commit suicide by jumping from his hotel window, was it an accident, or was he pushed? The history of real people intrigues me.

From Fred Gissoni, Louisville, KY:

Last night I read the March issue of the Matilda Ziegler Magazine, and it made me think back to the first issues I read in the 1930's. They arrived not in envelopes but rolled and in a paper sleeve. They were produced in Monsey, NY, not far from my home in Northvale, NJ. The cover page of the braille edition had braille near the top and bottom and raised print in the center. Successful Blind was a monthly feature in those days, along with Current Events and Special Notices.

When Hitler marched into Austria March 1938, the Ziegler had a map showing significant locations. When Italy invaded Albania, when Hitler entered Czechoslovakia, when he invaded Poland and later The Netherlands, France and Belgium and then Norway and Denmark, the Ziegler published maps that gave readers an idea of where things were happening. During World War II, the Ziegler showed us maps of the South Pacific, Africa, Australia, China and just about anywhere and everywhere important things were happening.

In the 1950's, Useful Tools, Services and Aids was a monthly feature written by Chick Ritter of the American Foundation for the Blind.

The calendar published each year in the December issue has made me aware of the movements of the moon and their relation to tides.

In the early 1940's, someone sent me a 1937 issue of the Moon Type edition of the Ziegler. I had fun playing with it, learning the Moon symbols along with some of the contractions used in that alphabet. But I never was much good at it.

I don't know if this is of any interest to anybody, but in this time of remembering Mrs. Ziegler's gift, I thought I'd toss in these memories.

From Cristiana Cerchiari, Sao Paolo, Brazil:

I would like to thank all the staff of the Ziegler for publishing the magazine and for the Web site's new features.

The audio format is great, although braille is much better. Yesterday I received the January issue by post, and I cannot wait to read the March issue. Thanks to your hard work, I can read the beginning of the magazine online. But I will wait for the braille version, which I will read from cover to cover.

From Marianela Cilleruelo, Buenos Aires, Argentina:

This is my first letter to Readers Forum, and it was Romeo Edmead's letter in the March issue that inspired me to write. I have grown up with the Ziegler. I don't remember exactly when I began reading it, but my good friend Jane McGrow, who now is in heaven, introduced me to it as a way to learn Grade II braille and practice my English. The magazine is a benefit for us--especially, for all the people around the world who are learning English. The articles, good and bad, help us. The magazine is a good complement to a person's education.

Some blind people don't know how to say thanks. Those who think all people are under an obligation to give things freely are wrong.

Some readers have complained about problems in delivery. These are mistakes by the post office. Around the world, post offices make many mistakes. Some countries don't allow Free Matter for the Blind, and a letter from Africa sometimes arrives one year after the writer sent it.

When the magazine does not arrive, complain to the post office and ask your post office to treat blind people's mail with respect.

From Diane Ficorelli, New Port Richey, FL:

Congratulations on reaching the 100th year of the publication of Matilda Ziegler. I have been reading the Ziegler in braille for the past 39 years, and find it to be one of the most interesting magazines I have ever read.

The January article, "The Fire Next Door," reminded me of what Jesus said about the blind leading the blind.

Please keep up the fine work for many more years to come.

From Jeri Williams, Colorado Springs, CO:

Thank you for this wonderful keepsake centennial volume. I very much enjoyed A Letter from the Editor as well as the letters from Ruth, Susan and Romeo. I was especially interested in the list of 91 countries to which the Matilda Ziegler Magazine is sent.

Congratulations to all of us on this 100th anniversary.

Here's to the next 100 years!