We would like to acknowledge the following contributors to this month’s STAE issue.
The Sterling Creations accessibility team, the Sterling Creations research team, Jeff N Marquis and Kerry J Harrison who are our resident business consultants, Scott Savoy our managing editor, Christian Robicheau our assistant editor, and Donna J Jodhan our president.
Meet Jeff N Marquis and Kerry J Harrison
Our resident experts with over 45 years of business consulting experience between them. These two are the authors of several books, articles, and newsletters. They are highly paid consultants to the US, British, and Canadian governments and they continue to “Walk the talk” on a daily basis.
They and their team of consultants work tirelessly to produce daily blogs that are jammed packed with up to the minute news wires and headlines from around the world, business news and trends, and current strategies. Marquis and Harrison are also motivational speakers and are booked solid till the end of 2008. They and their team also help countless businesses and individuals to research and write complaints and editorials so that the voices of their clients can be heard.
Their books include:
Secrets to Financial Success, Untapped Wealth, and Untapped Wealth Discovered first and second editions. They are presently at work on other books.
You can purchase a copy of any of their best sellers from www.amazon.com, or from any other large bookstore. You can check out their daily blogs on the business desk page at www.untappedwealth.com as well as at:
Hello there! This month we’d like to help you take a peek into the future and dream a bit. Often times the question is asked as to whether or not things could be made easier for special needs persons in the future when it comes to performing tasks that they are presently unable to do independently. We say why not but there are several skeptics around who are still pondering this question.
Technology has taken some giant steps in the past two decades but there is still much to accomplish when it comes to creating more independence for special needs persons. We hope that the following article brings hope to those who are optimistic although according to this article it’s still some way off. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for those robots and that they come sooner rather than later.
Robots may end up being man's new best friend
By Betsy Mason
Inside Bay Area, CA, March 01, 2007
Quote "By 2030, Grandpa could be zipping down the road to visit his
grandkids or go to the grocery store even though he's legally blind. The car
would be navigating, steering, obeying traffic lights and recognizing and
avoiding obstacles and other cars. "
Researchers: Machines may soon be able to perform human tasks
SAN FRANCISCO - A robot could be your next nanny. Or your next butler,
bodyguard, golf teacher or pet. Or even your next best friend.
Picture "The Jetsons," only better.
Some of the country's leading robotics experts gathered here recently at the
annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to
present their latest research and talk about a future rife with robots.
"Home robots will happen a lot faster than you think," said roboticist David
Calkins of California State University, San Francisco.
In addition to a maid-bot akin to George and Jane's Rosie, your future could
include:
-A huggable teddy bear that tutors your kids in Spanish or French;
-An autonomous car that drives you to work while you nap, eat or prepare
your PowerPoint presentation;
-A Chihuahua-sized pet dinosaur that learns whether you like to cuddle, play
or be left alone;
-A computer that can move its screen to help your posture or match your task
or mood;
-A party-bot that greets your guests at the door, introduces them in case
you've forgotten their names and entertains them with music, jokes and
finger food.
It may sound like science fiction, but some of these robots might be
knocking on your door in just a few years or even months.
These robots will use a range of new technology including voice, face,
pattern and emotion recognition software; the ability to walk rather than
roll on wheels; wireless capability;
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the ability to recharge when needed; intelligent grasping; and the ability
to display appropriate emotional cues, such as a smile.
"Most of these technologies already exist now," Calkins said. "But they need
to be brought together."
Inspired by his grandmother, who wasn't very skilled at keeping her cats
alive and was heartbroken each time she lost one, Calkins got her a robot
dog that served much the same purpose without the risk of another
devastating loss.
"She loves the thing," he said.
Caring for the elderly is an area where robots could really be a boon,
Calkins said. In addition to providing companionship to relieve loneliness
and depression, robots can help Grandpa take the right medications at the
right time; send his vital statistics to the doctor, who can monitor them
from afar; recognize if he's fallen and call for help; open doors and reach
items for him; and be his partner for a game of cards.
Crude machines that perform some of these functions exist in nursing homes,
but Calkins foresees a robotic explosion in the lives of the elderly and
handicapped in the near future.
By 2030, Grandpa could be zipping down the road to visit his grandkids or go
to the grocery store even though he's legally blind. The car would be
navigating, steering, obeying traffic lights and recognizing and avoiding
obstacles and other cars.
"When cars can finally drive themselves, it will be a fundamental change for
all of us," said Sebastian Thrun, an electrical engineer and computer
scientist at Stanford University. Thrun is one of the leaders of the
Stanford Racing Team that won the Grand Challenge autonomous vehicle race in
2005. Stanford's modified Volkswagen Touareg SUV, named Stanley,
successfully navigated 175 miles through Nevada's desert in less than
10 hours without any human help.
The team unveiled its entry for the 2007 autonomous vehicle challenge at the
meeting Saturday. Dubbed Junior, the modified Volkswagen Passat wagon is
designed to work in an urban environment with traffic laws and other
vehicles. In the Urban Challenge in November, Junior will have to accomplish
tasks in this environment while avoiding collisions with the other robots.
Junior has 360-degree, three-dimensional vision provided by six video
cameras, GPS and bumper-mounted lasers to help it gather information about
its surroundings. Its computer "brain" is four times as powerful as
Stanley's was.
Thrun predicts that autonomous cars will be aiding in military activities by
2015 and ready for the American highway by 2030. In addition to seniors who
might not pass a driver's test, many others could benefit from autonomous
vehicles, he said. Workers could use their commute time, which averages an
hour for Americans, to sleep, read the paper or start their workday.
Self-driving cars have the potential to be far safer than human-piloted
vehicles and could save lives. And drunken driving could eventually be a
thing of the past.
Robots are becoming invaluable research assistants for scientists as well.
University of California, Berkeley, engineer Ken Goldberg has devised a
robotic surveillance system that can spare scientists hours of time spent in
the field hoping to catch a glimpse of their research subject. The system is
being used in Arkansas to help scientists search for the ivory-billed
woodpecker, a bird that was thought to be extinct but may have been spotted
recently by bird-watchers.
One of the next big hurdles for robots is the ability to move over varied
terrain. UC Berkeley biologist Robert Full is using technology inspired by
cockroaches, crabs, centipedes and geckos to develop robots that can climb
gravely hills, whack through brush, muck through mud, scramble over rocks
and scale vertical surfaces.
Taking a lesson from geckos, which can scamper up trees or even buildings
with smooth surfaces, Full and his colleagues have engineered a Stickybot
with feet covered in hair and toes that peel away from surfaces just like a
gecko's. The robot can climb smooth vertical surfaces such as polished
granite or glass. Stickybot was named one of TIME magazine's best inventions
Hi there! We hope that our readers are continuing to enjoy the summer and that this month’s article will be a basis for creative thinking.
The picture being painted in the following article re our neighbors to the North, Canada, could easily be applied to us here in America. Canada is one of the most industrialized countries in the world and is one of the big eight. It would do us well to take note of the following article and pay close attention to what the author is telling us. We would like to thank Chris Denton of Toronto Canada for sending us this article. Enjoy the month of August.
Poor called key to filling jobs
Louise Brown
The Toronto Star, Vfeb. 21, 2007
They are the Canadians most often forgotten - aboriginal youth, the poor,
the uneducated - yet a new report says they hold the key to this country's
economic future and could even provide a surprise labour pool to support
baby boomers in their old age.
From carpenters to climate experts, Canada needs more educated workers to
fuel our economy and compete in the world, concludes the report by The
Canada Millenium Scholarship Foundation, to be released today. But given a
falling birth rate, sweeping retirements and the fact two-thirds of
middle-income kids already flock to college and university, Canada must tap
a new source of educated workers from among those least likely to pursue
higher learning: low-
income students, aboriginal teens and youth whose parents never went beyond
high school, said the report by the federally funded research body.
For the complex jobs of the future, these groups hold the key - despite the
often staggering roadblocks they face to learning, said policy analyst
Joseph Berger, co-author of the study, called "Why Access Matters."
"Nearly 70 per cent of all new jobs will require some level of post-
secondary education. But only 53 per cent of Canadians graduate from college
or university, so we've got a gap that needs to be addressed, " said Berger.
That's exactly the problem Canada's business gurus tackled yesterday as
Microsoft chair Bill Gates addressed the annual CanQWin conference in Ottawa
on the topic, "Competing to Win in the Global Economy - Creating a Skilled
Workforce to drive Economic Prosperity."
"This is the whole theme everyone's facing - how to move from an economy
which didn't have enough jobs for everyone, to one in which we will not have
enough people to do all the jobs," said David Stewart-Patterson, executive
vice-president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. The council
represents the heads of Canada's 150 largest firms.
"We know access to education is a huge part of the answer, not only for the
economy, but for social equity. We can't afford to waste a single mind we
have in this country."
The report noted that more workers will be needed to support those on
pension as Canada's working-age population shrinks and the ranks of seniors
grow.
Yet while Canada has led most developed nations for years with our level of
post-secondary education, today's report cautions this growth rate has
stalled at about 4 per cent per year over the past decade. Other nations are
catching up, including Australia (which has grown by 28 per cent), Korea (up
59 per cent), Great Britain (24 per cent) and even tiny Iceland, where
post-secondary enrolment has almost doubled.
"Canada needs to grow more people with higher education to remain
competitive. But in order to do this, we have to encourage more of those
people who are under-represented - and they're the hardest ones to encourage
because of the barriers they face," said Berger in an interview.
The report echoes business leaders' growing alarm about Canada's looming
shortage of qualified workers, from auditors to auto mechanics - a shortage
acknowledged by federal finance minister Jim Flaherty in his last financial
statement.
Canada is a leader in overall post-secondary education. But this is driven
largely by our robust college systems and not by university achievement,
where we stand sixth among developed countries.
Moreover, as Canada's young aboriginal population grows faster than any
other group in the country, there is growing pressure to reduce their
dropout rate and encourage post-secondary learning, said the report.
Provinces such as Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, with their booming
ranks of aboriginal children, must improve levels of native education, not
only for the students' benefit, but also for the good of the provincial
economies and ultimately, Canada's prosperity.
Only about 28 per cent of Canada's aboriginal youth enrol in college or
university by age 20, compared to 60 per cent of non- aboriginal youth, said
the report. By age 24, about 40 per cent have enrolled in some form of
higher education, compared to 68 per cent of non-aboriginal adults at the
same age.
But before boosting the number of First Nations students going to college
and university, you must help more of them graduate from high school by
tackling the estimated 58 per cent dropout rate on First Nations reserves -
a dropout rate twice that of the population at large.
Similarly, a recent Statistics Canada study released earlier this month
showed low-income students are less likely to go to university partly
because they do worse on their high school report cards and literacy tests.
This suggests it's a longer-term problem to resolve.
From the soap box
Blind Texas employees say lack of access to apps violates theirprivacy, state laws
August2007
By Scott Savoy
Hi everyone! Hope all of our readers are continuing to enjoy the summer. Too bad that it is quickly coming to an end.
This month I’d like to zoom in on the continuing fight between the disabled and big corporations. I for one am a strong advocate of the disabled standing up for their rights and to this end I am always more than happy to publicize any issue that would help the disabled in their constant and continuing fight against big business.
In recent years we’ve seen several issues and complaints being raised and launched by disabled groups and individuals against such corporations as Target, Microsoft, some Airlines, America Online, several large American banks, and the latest is against Oracle. These complaints are only going to increase with time unless big business starts to take the disabled seriously. I hope that this article helps to give our readers an insight into the huge battles being encountered by the disabled. Maybe you’d like to send your comments to me at info@sterlingcreations.ca.
Blind Texas employees say lack of access to apps violates their privacy,
state laws
By Marc L. Songini
ComputerWorld, MA, February 27, 2007
February 27, 2007 -- The National Federation of the Blind has filed a
lawsuit against Oracle Corp. and the state of Texas seeking to ensure that
all applications used by the state government are accessible to blind state
employees.
The suit was filed earlier this month in the Travis County District Court
in Austin by the advocacy group and three blind Texas state workers who
claim that their inability to access the applications is preventing them
from doing their jobs. The suit specifically cited the human resource
applications in the Oracle PeopleSoft software used by the state Health and
Human Services and Workforce Commissions. Defendants in the lawsuit include
the directors of these agencies, the state's acting CTO, Brian Rawson, and
Oracle.
The lawsuit seeks to force Oracle to make the HR software in its ERP
software accessible, and for the state to stop purchasing any inaccessible
software.
Tommy Craig, president of the Texas chapter of the National Federation of
the Blind, said that Texas law requires that "all software and computer
systems purchased by the state be accessible for blind employees. That law
has been in effect for 10 years." He noted blind supervisors cannot now
access the records of workers who report to them, while blind employees
can't access their own records without assistance, which raises privacy and
confidentiality issues.
Craig suggested that various remedies are available to the state to make
applications accessible to blind employees. For instance, a Braille enabled
device could be attached to a computer serial port, or applications could be
voice-enabled, he said. "It doesn't take a lot to do it. Just put a little a
planning into it," Craig said.
Edwin Kunz, who directs a rehabilitation center for the blind within the
Health and Human Services Commission's Department of Assistive and
Rehabilitative Services and a plaintiff in the case, said he has been hurt
by the lack of access to the HR applications. "Because I must have sighted
assistance for all of these personnel functions, both my privacy and the
privacy of my employees are routinely violated," he said in a statement.
"I've complained about the problems with the software, but nothing has been
done to fix them. I hope this lawsuit will spur Oracle to move quickly to
correct this problem; otherwise the state will have to purchase human
resources software from someone else."
Renee Mauzy, the general counsel for the state's IT operation, the
Department of Information Resources, said the state plans to deliver an
initial response to the lawsuit on Monday. She said the DIR is already
working with Oracle and the state HHS and Workforce Commissions to fix the
problems. "We're in the initial stages of trying to figure out what the
products are doing or not doing," Mauzy said. "We'll do whatever the court
orders. The DIR wants to get this resolved. We want software that's
accessible."
Both the Health and Human Services Commission and Texas Workforce Commission
declined to comment on the suit, citing pending litigation. An Oracle
NFB Vows Action After Blind Man Denied USS JFK Tour By Navy
August 2007
Sponsored by Donna J Jodhan
Hi everyone! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer. This month I’ve chosen an article that focuses on nothing but blatant ignorance and naivety and when it comes to the Navy it simply shocks me that this group of protectors could be so clueless when it comes to interacting with visually impaired persons. I fully support the NFB’s efforts to resolve this matter and I truly hope that the Navy takes this issue seriously. Seriously enough to never let it happen again.
NFB Vows Action After Blind Man Denied USS JFK Tour By Navy
Group: Navy shortsighted on tours
By Jessica Fargen
Boston Herald, March 5, 2007
A national rights group for the blind is vowing action after a
vision-impaired South Boston man was denied a visit on the historic USS John
F. Kennedy yesterday after Navy officers told him it was too perilous for
the blind.
"When it happens, it's a very traumatic experience to be denied the
right to participate in something," said Mika Pyyhkala, 34, who unlike
30,000 other people, did not get a chance to walk the deck of the USS JFK
yesterday.
Marc Maurer, an attorney and president of the National Federation of the
Blind in Baltimore, said the Navy's denial violates the federal Americans
with Disabilities Act as well as a state law providing for equal access.
"I was outraged by it and I still am. Blind people are not prepared to
stand for it. He has the support of thousands of blind people around the
United States," Maurer said last night, adding that he planned to meet with
staff today to craft a response.
Navy Lt. Paul Brawley said people in wheelchairs and motorized scooters
were allowed access this weekend, but not the blind.
The aircraft carrier's open hatches and narrow doorways aren't safe for
a blind person and there weren't enough crew members to personally escort
Pyyhkala, said Brawley.
"It's a matter of safety," he said.
"This is a ship of war. It is not a federal building. It is not a
public building."
He said children under 6 were denied entry as well. Pyyhkala was the
only blind person who attempted to board the ship this weekend, Brawley
said.
Brawley said 30,000 people visited the ship yesterday - that's 3,500
visitors an hour - and there were only 800 crewmembers to manage the crowds.
Another 21,000 people toured it Saturday. The ship will be decommissioned
March 23.
David Ticchi, president of the Cambridge chapter of the National
Federation of the Blind, said yesterday was Pyyhkala's last chance to visit
the great war ship and that's a shame.
"The boat's pulling out today, unfortunately," he said.
"He takes the time to go there. He's a citizen, a taxpayer and he's
interested in it and denied an opportunity purely on the basis of his
Family with ArkLaTex ties raising world's only blind & deaf identical
triplets
August 2007
By Christian Robicheau
Hello there everyone! This month I’ve chosen an article that was sent to me by Mary Stonehouse and I chose it because of its human interest content. I hope that you enjoy it and find it as interesting as I do. Thank you Mary.
Family with ArkLaTex ties raising world's only blind & deaf identical triplets.
By JENNIFER GRAY jgray@ktbs.com
KTBS Shreveport LA, February 27, 2007
Imagine raising triplets. Hard enough, you say. But imagine if all three
were blind and deaf. That's what one family with ties to the ArkLaTex is
dealing with. After six years, their family is getting national attention,
including from Dr. Phil. They are the world's only confirmed set of
identical triplets who are blind and deaf, and they weren't born that way.
When triplets Zoe, Emma, and Sophie Dunn were born 15 weeks premature, their
family knew it would be a long road. They were in and out of hospitals and
at 18 months they lost their hearing and eyesight during treatment. Three
preemies on the road to recovery became three people who would never see or
hear again. D'anne and George Hooker live in Carthage, Texas. Their son,
George, married the triplet's mother, Liz, two years ago. She'd gotten
divorced from the children's father. George, Jr. had dated Liz 14 years
earlier and never forgot her. George hoped to be a saving grace to his wife,
but the stress of raising the children has caused strains in the marriage.
That situation will be discussed on Wednesday's Dr. Phil show on KTBS 3 at
3pm. Dr. Phil heard about the story of the triplets, and stepped in to help.
The girls are 6-years-old. The Hookers spend weeks every year with their
grandchildren in their Houston home, as they keep hoping for a miracle. The
triplets revieved Coclear implants a year ago so they can hear some sounds,
and Sophie can see only images. Doctor's hope when she's 21-years old, they
will be able to perform surgury on her that will restore most of her sight.
Hey there! It’s August and here are our tips for this month.
Helpful tips for August:
Looking for ways to scare those persistent craws away?
You can either place a dummy scare crow in your garden or on your balcony or,
when you're outdoors take a radio with you.
Having problems keeping your shells from breaking before you're ready to crack your eggs?
Before placing your eggs in the pot of water, put in a few drops of vinegar.
This should do the trick.
Not sure which fruit contains the most calories between a bananna and an apple?
According to the health experts, the bananna contains more calories than an apple.
What are two very important ways to save water?
Close the tap while brushing your teeth,
Take showers instead of baths and make your showers brief.
No more than three minutes.
How to protect your credit card while you're away?
Before you leave town make that important call to your credit card company and let them know where you're going and for how long.
This way, if anyone steals your card number and uses it while you're gone, then your credit card company will know that it has been stolen because they'll know based on your notification that you could not have used it because you were away.
Similarly, they'll also know that you're using your card in a different location because you would have told them where you were going and they would not think that it was stolen.
You can locate your credit card company's phone number on the back of your card.
Which type of kettle boils water faster?
An electric one.
Takes up less electricity.
What's this about wearing sunglasses?
Wear them at an early age as they can protect you from losing your vision later in life.
Blue-eyed persons are more prone to sunlight.
Ditto for those who are fair-skinned.
Accessibility news
Florida to shift voting system
August 2007
By the Sterling Creations research team
Hello! For our second contribution this month we’ve chosen an article that highlights the changes to the voting system in Florida. This article examines what Florida is doing re presenting an alternative to touch-screen voting; an alternative that stands to help visually impaired voters.
Florida to Shift Voting System With Paper Trail
"The price of freedom is not cheap," Gov. Charlie Crist, right, said in
outlining a vote-counting change expected to cost $32.5 million.
By Alex Quesada
New York Times, February 02, 2007
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. - Gov. Charlie Crist announced plans on Thursday to
abandon the touch-screen voting machines that many of Florida's counties
installed after the disputed 2000 presidential election. The state will
instead adopt a system of casting paper ballots counted by scanning machines
in time for the 2008 presidential election.
Voting experts said Florida's move, coupled with new federal voting
legislation expected to pass this year, could be the death knell for the
paperless electronic touch-screen machines. If as expected the Florida
Legislature approves the $32.5 million cost of the change, it would be the
nation's biggest repudiation yet of touch-screen voting, which was widely
embraced after the 2000 recount as a state-of-the-art means of restoring
confidence that every vote would count.
Several counties around the country, including Cuyahoga in Ohio and Sarasota
in Florida, are moving toward exchanging touch-screen machines for ones that
provide a paper trail. But Florida could become the first state that
invested heavily in the recent rush to touch screens to reject them so
sweepingly.
"Florida is like a synonym for election problems; it's the Bermuda Triangle
of elections," said Warren Stewart, policy director of VoteTrust USA, a
nonprofit group that says optical scanners are more reliable than touch
screens. "For Florida to be clearly contemplating moving away from touch
screens to the greatest extent possible is truly significant."
Other states that rushed to buy the touch-screen machines are also
abandoning them. Earlier this week, the Virginia Senate passed a bill that
would phase out the machines as they wore out, and replace them with optical
scanners. The Maryland legislature also seems determined to order a switch
from the paperless touch screens, though it is not clear yet if it will
require the use of optical scanners or just allow paper printers to be added
to the touch screens.
On Monday, Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, plans to
introduce a bill in Congress that would require all voting machines
nationwide to produce paper records through which voters can verify that
their ballots were recorded correctly. A majority of House members have
endorsed the proposal, and the changes have strong support among Senate
Democrats. Mr. Holt's bill would also substantially toughen the requirements
for the touch-screen machines that have printers, and experts say this could
give even more impetus to the shift toward the optical scanning systems.
Mr. Crist,
a Republican,
at times drew whoops and applause when he announced his plan at the South
County Civic Center in Palm Beach County, the epicenter of the 2000 election
standoff and home of the infamous "butterfly ballot" that confused many
voters. The touch screens had replaced the punch-card systems that caused
widespread problems that year.
"You should, when you go vote, be able to have a record of it," Mr. Crist
told a few hundred mostly older citizens at the civic center, in Delray
Beach, where many residents said they accidentally voted for Patrick J.
Buchanan in 2000 instead of Al Gore because of the confusing ballot design.
"That's all we're proposing today. It's not very complicated; it is in fact
common sense. Most importantly, it is the right thing to do."
Mr. Crist's renunciation of touch-screen voting one month after he replaced
Jeb Bush as governor of the nation's fourth-most-populous state, suggested
that the fight for paper voting records, long a pet project of Democrats,
might become more bipartisan. Mr. Crist made the announcement with
Representative Robert Wexler, a Democrat from Delray Beach who has ardently
led the movement for a paper trail and has attacked Republicans along the
way.
"I support this plan 100 percent," Mr. Wexler said before introducing Mr.
Crist. "This governor means what he says, and he's coming to Tallahassee and
he's spreading the message throughout Florida that this isn't about
Republican or Democrat, it's not about this ideology or that; it's about
unifying people and doing what's right for the people of Florida."
The 15 Florida counties that have adopted touch-screen voting in recent
years, including Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Hillsborough, would
move to optical-scan voting under the proposal before the presidential
election of 2008. The plan would give them the option, however, of using
touch-screen machines during the state's two-week early voting period that
precedes Election Day, if the machines are modified to provide a paper
trail. Those counties represent
54 percent of the state's registered voters. Broward County alone has bought
about 6,000 touch-screen machines in recent years, and Palm Beach County has
about 4,500.
Mr. Crist said county election supervisors would explore how to make
optical-scan voting easier for blind people and for those who speak foreign
languages.
In some cases, they have been able to vote without assistance on the
touch-screen machines.
Asked how he felt about discarding tens of millions of dollars worth of
touch-screen machines just years after they were acquired, Mr. Crist said,
"The price of freedom is not cheap. The importance of a democratic system of
voting that we can trust, that we can have confidence in, is incredibly
important."
Election experts estimate that paperless electronic machines were used by
about 30 percent of voters nationwide in 2006. But their reliability has
increasingly come under scrutiny, as has the difficulty of doing recounts
without a paper trail. Federal technology experts concluded late last year
that paperless touch-screen machines could not be secured from tampering.
Some states had bought early versions of the paperless machines before the
2000 recount, and one of them, New Mexico, switched last year to optical
scanners.
But most of the machines in other states were purchased with federal money
provided under a 2002 law that required states to upgrade from old
punch-card and lever systems.
New York is planning to buy either screens with printers or optical
scanners, New Jersey is adding paper trails to its touch screens and
Connecticut is buying the optical scanners. A recent survey by Election Data
Services, a Washington consulting firm, estimated that 36 percent of the
nation's counties have bought electronic machines, including some with
printers attached, while 56 percent have the optical scan systems.
Mr. Holt said his bill would require the return to paper ballots by next
year's presidential primaries, and it would authorize $300 million in
federal money to upgrade the machines. Some state and county election
officials say it could be difficult to make such sweeping changes by then.
But, Mr. Holt said, "it depends on how badly we want to do it. The public is
getting very impatient here."
In Sarasota County last November, more than 18,000 voters who used
touch-screen machines did not have their votes recorded in the close
Congressional race between Vern Buchanan, the Republican, and Christine
Jennings, the Democrat. Mr. Buchanan took office last month after a recount
gave him a 369-vote victory, but Ms. Jennings has sued.
Former Governor Bush, President Bush's younger brother, generally defended
touch-screen voting during his tenure and said skeptics had fallen prey to
"conspiracy theories." But leading up to the 2004 presidential election, the
Republican Party of Florida sent out fliers urging voters to use absentee
ballots because of the absence of a paper trail.
Experts say the optical scanners are less expensive than the touch-screen
systems. But Kimball W. Brace, the president of Election Data Services, said
optical scanning systems had had a slightly higher rate of voter error than
touch screens.
Letters to the editor
August 2007
From the desk of the editor
Hey there! Here are this month’s contributions.
From Ryan Holt of Washington DC:
It really irks me that as a visually impaired person I have to pay plenty of money to obtain simple products like canes, special measuring cups for the blind, Braille labels, Braille paper, and so much more. These darn agencies are just gouging us to death. Has anyone thought of setting up an online boutique to run these guys out of town?
From Christine McNeil of Aberdeen Scotland:
I am really enjoying reading this magazine. I like the new section on helpful tips. I also like the human interest stories and how the staff presents a variety of articles each month. Keep up the good work.
From Dave Cook of Pontiac Michigan:
I bought Untapped Wealth Discovered recently and read it over a long weekend. It’s well written, well laid out, and the authors know their stuff. No smoking mirrors here. No false hope given here. No nonsense and beating about the bush here. The straight and honest stuff.
From Sheldon Kelly of Toronto Canada:
Talk about agencies just wasting taxpayers money and you got the CNIB. It’s time for the CNIB to pack its bags and make room for someone else. Move over and let someone else take over. Let someone else who’s really interested in helping blind persons take the wheel. What Canadians don’t know is that the CNIB is nothing but a thief in the night just robbing poor blind Canadians of services and filling their pockets with funds that they take from the public. Now they’re saying that they need funds to do research. Poor excuse folks! Dishonest and just lies!
From Martha Johnson of Indiana:
I’m trying to find cook books in Braille. Can anyone tell me where I can go to find them? I’d prefer to buy from an online store. It’s for my sister who has been blind for the last 10 years and she loves to cook. Thanks a lot.
From Peter Muhler of Berlin Germany:
This is a good magazine for anyone wishing to keep up to date with news on various issues for the disabled. However, I’d like to see more articles on how to help disabled persons create their own businesses.
If you’d like to send your comments to us then please do so by sending an email to info@sterlingcreations.ca. We aim to publish as many letters and comments as we can. However, any submissions with offensive or profane language will not be published.
Editorial
August 2007
By Donna J Jodhan
Do women have a place in the small business arena?
I have been a small business owner for over 13 years now and I say yes! In a world where men still rule, and there’s still a glass ceiling for women, I truly believe that there is definitely a place for us. I am a woman, I am visually impaired, but I’ve managed to make it!
Did you know that women are the owners of about 25% of small businesses in America today? Did you also know that they are the owners of 10 of the top Fortune 500 companies? Did you also know that women business owners is one of the fastest growing trends in America today? According to CNN news, the growth of women owners of small businesses outstripped the growth of new companies in 2006 by about 23%.
The number of battered women across America continues to increase. The number of women as single parents also continues to skyrocket, but at the same time and despite all of this, women are still making it in the business world.
The challenges for women are many, but it is definitely doable. Persistence is one of the ingredients for success. Another is making sure that our voices are heard on a constant basis. We need to constantly keep reminding the rest of the world that we have something to contribute. We can think for ourselves and we are independent enough to pay our own taxes, earn our own incomes, and live our own lives.
What we need to keep in mind is that we have to keep ourselves focused on the prize. We need to remember that both men and many of our fellow women will always be questioning our abilities both in and out of the boardroom and we have to find ways to keep proving them wrong. I know that it’s often hard to keep our cool, but losing our cool will only give them amunition for more attacks on our abilities.
So, don’t give up! As women we have to stick together and help and support each other.
Notes
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