Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Thoughts on Blindness

"When I go into a community to speak to a group and someone says to me, Oh I know exactly what you mean; I know what blind people can do, because I know a blind person, I often cringe. I say to myself, And what kind of blind person do you know?
This gives emphasis (if, indeed, emphasis is needed) to the constantly observed truth that all blind people are judged by one. If a person has known a blind man who is especially gifted as a musician, he is likely to believe that all of the blind are good at music. Many of us are living examples of the fallacy of that misconception." -- Dr. Kenneth Jernigan
“Let me be very clear about this. I have no wish to minimize the character and extent of blindness as a disability. It is for all of us a constant nuisance and a serious inconvenience. To overcome it requires effort and patience and initiative and guts. It is not compensated for, despite the fairy tales to the contrary, by the spontaneous emergence of a miraculous sixth sense or any other magical powers. It means nothing more or less than the loss of one of the five senses and a corresponding greater reliance upon the four that remain as well as upon the brain, the heart, and the spirit.” – “The Cross of Blindness” by Dr. Jacobus tenBroek

The Courtesy Rules of Blindness:http://www.blind.net/g0000001.htm
www.braille.org
www.freedomscientific.com
www.humanware.com

I follow with the iced coffee...

No comments: