Free Republic

So I'm watching the Weather Channel. (I'm allowed. My 93 year old Mom lives on the Intracoastal in West Palm Beach.) And there's some government guy, in the Carolinas I think, talking about doom and destruction in a little window on the screen. In another window, three times the size, there's some fat oaf flailing away, almost assuredly at taxpayer expense, with his hands and arms. I assume he was "signing" the words of the government guy. So I looked. Our deaf or nearly deaf population is about a million. (And they must be illiterate or blind too, because it...

Muharram Yazgan, who can only communicate with others using sign language, was secretly recorded on a walk out with his sister Özlem. As Yazgan walked through the city, he was stunned to encounter a series of individuals who spoke to him in sign language. The final stunt at the end of his walk brought Yazgan to tears

Video at link. Arizona is defying a federal order to eliminate apartments for deaf seniors at a housing complex built specifically -- for the deaf. "I think it's about the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while," said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who attempted to negotiate the impasse. "There are a lot of stories of out-of-control regulators, but this just seems to be going to the extreme." A 2005 federal study found that the U.S. had virtually no affordable housing for the deaf. So the federal government helped build Apache ASL Trails, a 75-unit apartment building in Tempe, Ariz.,...

A relative of ours is hard of hearing. He's tried several types of hearing aids but they have not met his satisfaction. When he visits us and we're watching TV, he can't hear it unless the volume is so loud it drives the rest of us out of the room. We have a small house and an open floor plan, so moving to another room is not an option. We can hear a loud TV throughout the entire house. A possible solution would be a headset for him on which he can adjust to volume to his liking while the...

[Yesterday] on San Diego 6 News at 10 pm, the local news channel presented a story on Valentine's Day cards and packages that are currentlly being prepared for U.S. Military troops by individual civilians. During this segment a young lady read a sample card that would be sent to one of the troops. The closed captioning service, used by the hearing impaired, accurately displayed what was being read until it came to the words "God bless you." For some reason, those three words were left out ...

March 28, 2005 IU Researchers Closer to Helping Hearing-Impaired Using Stem Cells INDIANAPOLIS — Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine are several steps closer to the day when a profoundly deaf patient’s own bone marrow cells could be used to let him or her hear the world. The IU group, led by Eri Hashino, Ph.D., was able to transform, in the laboratory, stem cells taken from adult bone marrow into cells with many of the characteristics of sensory nerve cells -- neurons -- found in the ear. The results suggest that these adult stem cells could be used to...

Va. music student defies deafness to a high degree By Bill Baskervill, The Associated Press May 18, 2003 RICHMOND, Va. - A woman who lost all hearing when she was beaten by a robber received a master's degree in music composition Saturday from Virginia Commonwealth University, becoming the first deaf student ever to earn a music degree from the school. By Lisa Billings/AP Tammie Willis watches fellow music student Tiara Walker play piano at Virginia Commonwealth University. Willis can't hear the music - she was rendered deaf in a 1994 beating Instructor William Eldridge described Tammie Willis's accomplishment as...