Table of contents
1 Ask the expert
2 Business commentary
3 From the soap box
4 The reader’s choice
5 News and views
6 Helpful tips
7Accessibility news
8Editorial
9Comments to the editor
10Notes
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the following contributors to this month’s STAE issue.
The Sterling Creations accessibility team, the Sterling Creations business team, the Sterling Creations research team, Scott Savoy our managing editor, Christian Robicheau our assistant editor, our readers, and Donna J Jodhan our president.
Donna J Jodhan is the founder and president of Sterling Creations which was founded in 1994. As a blind woman she has had to overcome mountainous challenges in order to get where she is today. She is a very successful business woman, consultant, and author and she continues to help produce daily blogs that contain weekly features on topics of interest and relevance. She is never tired, always willing to help others, and never gives up when it comes to helping others to voice their opinions. As she puts it: "My undying commitment is to ensure that the kids of tomorrow have a more level playing field when it comes to such things as employment opportunities, equal access to the Internet and technology. I think that if I can do my little part to help someone else succeed then in turn they will help others."
We are all very proud to be part of the Sterling Creations team but above all, we are pleased and delighted to have Donna J Jodhan as our leader.
Dear readers,
I would like to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a very merry Christmas and all good things for 2009. I wish you good health, prosperity, and blessings from above. I hope that all of your aspirations, hopes, and dreams are realized in the near future.
I would like to thank you for your continuing support and feedback because it is only through you that we can expect to keep on producing our monthly magazine. On behalf of my staff, best wishes for a great holiday season and beyond.
Donna J Jodhan
President, Sterling Creations
Ask the expert
From cookware to software
December 2008
By the Sterling Creations accessibility team
Season's greeting readers! We the accessibility team would like to wish you the very best for 2009 and we hope that you have a lot to celebrate during this wonderful time of the year.
This month, we would like to publish an appropriate article to coincide with this time of the year and we hope that you find it interesting.
Merry Christmas from the Accessibility team
From cookware to software
by John Lethlean.
The Age
John Lethlean discovers a new kitchen whizz, a veritable culinary
positioning system.
NICELY ROUNDED VOWELS and soothing, faceless mid-Atlantic accents are taking
over our lives.
First they were in our elevators, telling us where we were. Then they were
in our cars, telling us to take the next left or stop at the next dense
thicket if we needed a wee.
Now we have one in our kitchen.
A new, moderate voice of reason, scrambling for attention above the
cacophony of family. "Have you got your utensils ready?" he asks,
frequently, if I ignore him. He doesn't like to be ignored. "Come again?" he
says if he hears a noise he doesn't understand, like me shouting "where are
the bloody kitchen scales?"
And: "OK, the first step is to remove the grit from the clams. You'll need a
mixing bowl for this."
Being gadget-minded, I like it/him very much. I wish he could have a drink
with me. It's not as informative as having the ABC's PM on the radio while I
play with food, but Peter Cave doesn't tell me how to cook dumplings or make
Welsh rarebit. Mmmmm. Toast with a spicy cheese topping.
My boy, being gadget-minded also, is not so certain about these tech-head
kitchen developments:
it's his Nintendo DS I've pinched to access my new friend, this culinary
GPS.
Recipe books are dead.
From now on, all we're going to need to cook great stuff is a piece of
shiny Japanese plastic and the right software, in this case a little card
you stuff in the back of the machine, unimaginatively titled Cooking Guide.
As a rule, I gather, these gadgets are for games. I don't game. Now they've
gone practical. They've become the unlikely platform for step-by-step
cooking classes and food information/inspiration with pictures, video, voice
recognition, calming messages . . .
The new voice of culinary empowerment, literally.
From now on, when I ask "darling, would you like to help dad with dinner?"
I'm not going to take umbrage at the pre-adolescent snarl or the candid "no
thanks" from the lad with his head sandwiched between a flat screen
television and a flat screen laptop. It'll be: "Fine, no problem, I'll make
dinner with my friend Nintendo Man."
Which is exactly what happened last night. Well, not exactly, because being
a sucker for novelty, my daughter chose to participate, enthusiastically.
We were like a proper family; mum at work, son in front of the computer,
dad, daughter and a faceless little man inside the piece of shiny Japanese
plastic in the kitchen, all working on dinner together.
We booted it up and chose a recipe; there are myriad ways you can do this,
filtering through cooking times, main ingredients, dish nationality, degree
of difficulty, calorific value. As well as all sorts of handy stuff like
demonstration videos (how to chop an onion) and the ability to add notes and
create shopping lists, there are about 280 recipes in there. The big
surprise is that a lot of them appear to be really good.
So, for example, if you search based on "Requirements" and enter "Easy",
"Main Ingredient Seafood", "Cooking Method Deep Fry", "Calories 500k or
less" and "Cooking Time 60 mins or less" you'll come up with just one:
crab cakes, with a little US flag next to it (the Australasian area, chosen
by moving around a world map, includes a meat pie, a pav and a char-grilled
vegetable salad - our contribution to Nintendo Man's world of food).
There's nothing new about the technology, but the platform, with voice
recognition, is a whole lot better than putting your laptop next to a hob
with oil and flame going everywhere. And the step-by-step approach, with
little audio embellishments like the sound of rinsing clams
(seriously) helps.
He explains, you do. And when you've done, you bark "continue". Or "back".
Or "repeat". Never an oily, smelly hand need touch the device once you've
kicked off.
Somehow, we chose paella. And so, a shiny little Japanese plastic thing with
a nice man's voice inside it helped me make a really good dish I've never
done before but have been planning, ever since buying a packet of the
special Spanish rice about a year ago, which has been sitting there quietly
sulking in the pantry.
Nintendo Man wooed my inner Valencian. We worked out the ingredients and
utensils required; shopped with the DS in hand, our list on-screen (it meant
buying a pan that imitated, but in no way approximated, a real paella pan);
opened a bottle of wine and set to it.
"Right, let's get started," cooed Nintendo Man. I was his.
An hour later we sat down to a pretty bloody good paella. Not perfect, but
that was my fault;
what do you expect when you use a flat non-stick pan from the Asian grocery
instead of a real mild steel one that gets a nice crust on the bottom?
Still, we were all impressed. Seriously.
It cannot, surely, be long before generic Nintendo Man walks erect to become
generic Thai or Japanese Man, who will then evolve into Nintendo Celebrity
Chef (I know there's a Jamie Oliver game on the way from Atari, but it's a
game, not a tool).
Just imagine having Gordon Ramsay giving you step by step. "Poach the
lobster in a court bouillon. What do you mean 'what's a court bouillon?'
Wanker!"
Think I'll stick with Nintendo Man for now. We all need a friend in the
kitchen.
Nintendo Cooking Guide is $49.95 RRP (hunt around and you'll find it for
much less); the console is $199.95.
Business commentary
Environmental worries fuel workplace change
December 2008
By the Sterling Creations business team
Greetings from the business team!
We hope that your year was a good one and we too would like to wish you all the best for 2009. This month, we would like to zoom in on a very hot topic of the day; environmental changes and global warming and we hope that this article that we have chosen helps to shed some important light on the topic.
See you in January.
Environmental worries fuel workplace change; Reduced work weeks and dress
code changes are slowly taking hold, writes Shannon Proudfoot
Shannon Proudfoot
Ottawa Citizen
>From the return of the cardigan to showering at the office and reduced work
weeks, experts say the environment has already altered our workplace lives
and is poised to overhaul them completely.
The idea of compressed four-day work weeks to reduce commutes and conserve
energy was floated last week by Nova Scotia's provincial government and at
Hamilton city hall -- just one of many initiatives employers are considering
that will change how we work.
"It's slow, but it will pick up pace," says Bruce Cox, executive director of
Greenpeace Canada. "What it really takes, in my view, is management will --
somebody to sit down and say, 'We're going to do this'."
That could spell an end to business uniforms that leave female employees
shivering in offices air-conditioned to Arctic temperatures for the comfort
of their multi-layered male colleagues, he says. Mr. Cox predicts workplace
dress codes will change as climate controls are moderated, meaning the
demise of the suit in the steamy summer and "the return of the cardigan" in
cold weather.
"It will be a fashion statement!" he says, laughing.
Office architects are starting to recommend on-site showers and bike lockers
for pedal-powered commuters, he says, and a few large industrial employers
are bringing back "the old company bus" to shuttle employees to work and
replace a lot full of cars.
Some organizations have started replacing long-distance travel with
teleconferencing, Mr. Cox says. Most find it catches on slowly at first, he
says, but with virtual flip-charts, ever-improving technology conveying each
gesture and expression and the potential to save a lot of time and money,
teleconference facilities soon boast long waiting lists.
"I think you'll always need some face-to-face meeting, but so much of it can
be reduced," Mr. Cox says. "We're going to have a board meeting by
teleconference and yeah, we won't have the board dinner, but we'll spend a
day together."
Workplace environmental change is happening on two scales right now, Mr.
Winter says. On one, massive corporations like Wal-Mart are greening their
practices from rafters to parking lot, while the other is the birth of
small-scale "eco-preneurial" businesses catering to the needs of a greener
economy.
Mainstream companies are now willing to pay someone to help them go green,
says Shamus Finnegan, sales and marketing for Vancouver-based Green
Workplace. The former non-profit reinvented itself as a fee-for-service
business when its federal funding was cut, he says, and it's now seeing its
modest revenues grow by 30 to 40 per cent a year.
Green Workplace assesses a company's environmental footprint and potential
for shrinking it in real-world terms, like the number of trees felled for
paper consumption, Mr. Finnegan says. Its employees even dive into dumpsters
with digital cameras and scales to measure the toxins going out the door.
"Businesses are now beginning to take stock of their environmental impacts
and account for them, just as they do with their cash-flow and all the rest
of it," he says.
From the soap box
R.I.P: THE AUDIO BOOK ON CASSETTE IS NOW GONE WITH THE WIND December 2008
By Scott Savoy
Happy December to you! I'm Scott Savoy, managing editor of STAE and on behalf of my staff, I would like to wish all of our readers a very merry Christmas, wonderful holiday season, and the very best for 2009.
This month, I have chosen to share an article with you that may be of interest to those of you who continue to wonder about the demise of the audio cassette book. Please enjoy and see you in January.
R.I.P: THE AUDIO BOOK ON CASSETTE IS NOW GONE WITH THE WIND
It had a glorious run and was as resilient as those stalwart defenders of The Alamo, but ultimately it was just as doomed. The audio book cassette is now
virtually finished with the last major publishing house ceasing manufacture of the item that was a byproduct of the portable music revolution that began
in the late 1970s when the Sony Walkman allowed consumers to listen to their own music while on the go. Amazingly, the market has lasted to now even though
the cassette originally fell victim to the CD and now music downloads. Still, the audio book had a small but loyal following that cites the advantage of
being able to stop the cassette at a certain point and resume playing it at the exact same point- something that isn't as easily manageable on CDs. Libraries
remain the biggest buyer of the cassette format but sales there are slowing as well. Ironically, although vinyl is making a big comeback with record lovers,
industry pundits predict no such happy ending for the cassette which, they say, lacks "sex appeal". Thus, it's destined to be the Rory Calhoun of the audio
industry: popular for a while, but ultimately forgettable.
Say So Long to an Old Companion - Cassette Tapes - NYTimes.com
By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN
Published: July 28, 2008
There was a funeral the other day in the Midtown offices of Hachette, the book publisher, to mourn the passing of what it called a "dear friend." Nobody
had actually died, except for a piece of technology, the cassette tape.
While the cassette was dumped long ago by the music industry, it has lived on among publishers of audio books. Many people prefer cassettes because they
make it easy to pick up in the same place where the listener left off, or to rewind in case a certain sentence is missed. For Hachette, however, demand
had slowed so much that it released its last book on cassette in June, with "Sail," a novel by James Patterson and Howard Roughan.
The funeral at Hachette - an office party in the audio-book department - mirrored the broader demise of cassettes, which gave vinyl a run for its money
before being eclipsed by the compact disc. (The CD, too, is in rapid decline, thanks to Internet music stores, but that is a different story.)
Cassettes have limped along for some time, partly because of their usefulness in recording conversations or making a tape of favorite songs, say, for a
girlfriend. But sales of portable tape players, which peaked at 18 million in 1994, sank to 480,000 in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.
The group predicts that sales will taper to 86,000 in 2012.
"I bet you would be hard pressed to find a household in the U.S. that doesn't have at least a couple cassette tapes hanging around," said Shawn DuBravac,
an economist with the Consumer Electronics Association. Even if publishers of music and audio books stopped using cassettes entirely, people would still
shop for tape players because of "the huge libraries of legacy content consumers have kept," he said.
As long as people keep mix tapes from a high-school sweetheart up in the attic, Mr. DuBravac said, there will still be the urge to hear them. "People have
a tremendous amount of installed content and an innate curiosity when coming across a box of tapes to say, 'Hey, what's on these?' " he said.
The tapes started to really take off in 1979, the year that a radical new cassette player - the Sony Walkman - was introduced, enabling people to listen to Donna Summer and the Knack's "My Sharona" while they were jogging (remember jogging?). The heft
of the early Walkman - slightly smaller and lighter than a brick - is comical by today's wispyiPod standards, but during the Carter administration it seemed sleek.
Nowadays, listening to music on cassettes is a dying pastime. None of Billboard's Top 10 albums last week were issued on cassette, though half were released
on vinyl, which has been resurging. Last year, only 400,000 music tapes were sold, representing one-tenth of 1 percent of all physical and digital music
sales, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. In 1997, the figure was 173 million, and that was when cassettes were already getting a drubbing by CDs. (The iPod wasn't introduced until 2001.)
“I would not expect to see a revival of cassettes like we've seen in the LP market," Mr. DuBravac said. While vinyl records have always been prized artifacts
for their devotees, the plastic cassette tape has little sex appeal.
Such was the case for the eight-track format as well, which was popular in the late 1960s and '70s. It died relatively quickly with the advent of cassettes
because eight-tracks were not widely used for personal recording or mix tapes, Mr. DuBravac said.
While the chances of finding cassette players in a dorm room today are slim, they are still available for sale: onAmazon , Sony alone offers 23 tape players, from the Walkman to boomboxes.
Popping a cassette in the car tape deck is also passé. Only 4 percent of vehicles sold in the United States during the 2007 model year had factory-installed
cassette players, according to Ward's Automotive Yearbook. As recently as the 2005 model year, 23 percent of vehicles had them.
Given that the median age of a car in the United States is nine years old, said Alan K. Binder, the editor of Ward's yearbook, it is most likely that the
majority of the 200 million cars and light trucks on America's roads have cassette players (though how many have had the same Bob Seger tape lodged unplayable
in them for 11 years is impossible to determine).
Tassette tapes' tendency to hiss - and to melt in the summer and snap in the winter - turns off audiophiles. But for audio books, the cassette is an oddly
elegant medium: you can eject it from your car, carry it home and stick it in a boombox, and it will pick up in the same place, an analog feat beyond the
ability of the CD.
Cassettes accounted for 7 percent of all sales in the $923 million audio-book industry in 2006, the latest year for which data is available, according to
the Audio Publishers Association. While many publishers, like
Random House and Macmillan, stopped producing books on cassette in the last couple of years, there are holdouts.
At Blackstone Audio, which produces cassette versions of its roughly 340 annual titles, Josh Stanton, the executive vice president, said there was still
demand from libraries and truckers, who buy them at truck stops. But he could forecast only that his company would produce cassettes through 2009.
Recorded Books, whose authors include Philip Roth and Jodi Picoult, still issues cassettes of all its titles, roughly 700 a year. Retailers like Borders and
Barnes & Noble have essentially stopped ordering them, but libraries have been slower to abandon them, said Brian Downing, the company's publisher.
The Web sites of Barnes & Noble and Borders, however, indicate that they still offer some cassettes, though publishers say the stores' buyers have expressed
little interest in ordering more in the future.
at some point, the cassette will go the way of the eight-track, Mr. Downing acknowledged, and his company will publish only in other formats.
“I would guess it would be pretty much gone in three years," he said.
Friendship
December 2008
Contributed by Carey Jansen of Washington DC
Dear Carey,
We at Sterling Creations would like to thank you for this wonderful contribution and we chose your article because we feel that it fits very well into the spirit of the season.
Thank you Carey!
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a
bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper,
he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the
next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails
hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to
hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day
came when the boy didn't lose his temp er at all.
He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull
out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that
all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said,
'You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The
fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a
scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it
out. But It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound will
still be there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one. Remember that
friends are very rare jewels, indeed. They make you smile and encourage
you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they
always want to open their hearts to us.'
It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care. Send
this to everyone you consider a FRIEND, even if it means sending it back
to the person who sent it to you! If it comes back to you, you will then
know you have a circle of friends.
YOU ARE MY FRIEND AND I AM HONORED!
Now send this to every friend you have!! And to your family (they need to
know that you love them too).
Please forgive me if I have ever left a 'hole' in your fence.
News and views
New hope for families with high cancer risk
December 2008
By Christian Robicheau
Season's greetings readers! I'd like to join my team members in wishing you a wonderful Christmas, holiday season, and all good things for 2009.
This month I have chosen an article which I hope would fill you with hope and expectancy. For the millions of you who have been touched in some way by cancer, I hope that this article helps to bring some much needed relief to you.
Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year to you.
New hope for families with high cancer risk; Genetic discovery could lead to
blood test for detecting tumours early
Sheryl Ubelacker
The Toronto Star
Canadian researchers have uncovered a genetic anomaly in people with a
higher-than-normal risk of developing cancer that could lead to a blood test
for detecting their tumours early, when the disease is most treatable.
The discovery, which involved families with the rare inherited disorder Li-
Fraumeni syndrome (LFS), could also have implications for understanding how
various types of cancer arise in the broader population, the scientists say.
In a study led by Dr. David Malkin of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children,
researchers determined that individuals affected by LFS have greater
variation in their DNA compared to those without the condition.
They found that people with LFS have an increase in what are known as copy
number variations, or CNVs - the duplication or deletion of large segments
of DNA. They also found CNVs also exist in the blood DNA of LFS patients and
may be passed along through generations.
Li-Fraumeni syndrome increases the probability of developing specific
cancers in childhood and early adulthood, among them soft tissue and bone
cancers, brain tumours and breast cancer. There are about 2,000 families
worldwide known to have the disorder, but Malkin said doctors believe the
number is actually larger.
Most people with LFS have a mutation in their P53 gene, which normally
provides stability to the DNA.
The study, published online yesterday by the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, showed that subjects with a P53 mutation in blood cells
had a significantly higher frequency of CNVs than control subjects without
the genetic alteration.
"So it would imply that people who have a mutation in this gene and are
susceptible to cancer have inherently regions of their DNA which are
duplicated or deleted and therefore are unstable," said Malkin, a pediatric
oncologist at Sick Kids. "And that may have something to do with the
mechanism by which they develop cancer."
"So something's changing," Malkin said, adding it's not known if the gene
itself is altered or whether unstable regions of the DNA change over the
years so that they acquire more duplications or deletions.
Helpful tips
December 2008
By the Sterling Creations research team
Happy holiday to all of you out there! We wish you the merriest, the happiest, and the holiest holiday season! Here now are our tips for December.
Helpful tips for December
Okay, here we go!
Which fruit is one of the best pick me ups on a morning?
Why! An apple of course!
Apples are loaded with fiber and sugar.
Ah, that very delicious tasting cup of chamomile tea, what good does it do?
Chamomile tea is good for dealing with stress.
It also helps to give you a good night's sleep.
It is also good for those suffering from diabetes.
White chocolate, do you know which ingredients make up white chocolate?
Well, lots of coco butter, vanilla, and dairy products.
Some very helpful financial tips for you to consider!
When taking out a mortgage, you should not borrow more than 80%.
That is, if you are seeking to buy a house at $200,000, then the ideal financing calculations should be that you make a down payment of $40,000 and take out a mortgage for $160,000.
Next, you should always try to have a six months emergency fund in a separate account. A sum of money that would keep you afloat for six months should anything goes wrong.
What's this about the benefits of those good old tomatoes?
Well, they are loaded with potassium and fiber.
They are good for your complexion.
They contain lots of licopene, a cancer-fighting nutrient.
What is a good remedy for morning sickness?
Ginger of course!
Ginger tea, ginger bits.
When should a baby have his first taste of solid foods?
Anytime after his first six months.
For the first six months, he should only have milk and formula.
The benefits of hard boiled eggs?
A great snack to have during the day.
Hard boiled eggs contain lots of protein, vitamin B, and are low on calories.
What are the benefits of eating a good breakfast each morning?
Helps you to focus during the day.
Gives you strength.
What are two main contributors to the reduction of your cholesterol?
Why, oatmeal, walnuts and almonds.
Which type of exercise helps to burn the nmost calories?
Why, jogging of course.
10 to 15 minutes of daily jogging can do the trick.
What can you do to relieve sore muscles?
Take lots of Epson salts baths.
It works!
With the winter season upon us, here is a tip to preserve your leather boots.
Each time you come in from the outdoors, remove your boots, wipe well with a paper towel, and place on sheets of newspaper to dry.
Remember to clean your boots often with leather cleaner and protector.
What are three important ingredients for making a delicious soup?
According to the chefs at the food network, they are:
Onions, celery, and carrots.
Does this not sound quite yummy for a cold winter's day?
Starting to suffer from those cracked heels?
Well, here is a remedy for you, one that is sure to work.
Rub your heels with moisturizing cream at least twice daily.
Do not, use Epson salts baths.
Epson salts will only dry out your cracked heels.
What can you use to rid yourself of that embarrassing dandruff?
Why, try using apple cider vinegar.
Massage your scalp with a solution of this each day and after a week or so you should see a vast improvement.
What should you not use on your newborn?
Why, cotton swabs.
Do not use them when cleaning baby's ears.
What type of knives should you be using in your kitchen?
All you need is a peering knife, a bread slicer, and a chef's knife.
The blades should not be anymore than eight inches in length.
Accessibility news
New screen reader coming soon
December 2008
By the Sterling creations research team
Hey again, and to you all once more, season's greetings, merry Christmas, and a happy 2009 to you!
Our article for this month focuses on a new screen reader for blind and visually impaired persons. This article was published a few months ago so hopefully by now, there will be lots for you to talk about and share with each other.
See you in January.
Beware of a revolutionary new Screen Reader !
Cobra - the stable and powerful new screen reader of a new generation is
easy and intuitively to use. The newly structured user interface together
with many Innovations will convince you.
The most important goal of every screen reader must be to support an
ergonomic way of working that results in a more efficient workflow. With
completely freely Configurable media of speech synthesis and Braille output, Cobra offers you
an optimum Comfort within a unified concept.
Cobra combines the fast and efficient 2-dimensional screen mode that
Blindows users already appreciate with the very often copied - but never achieved - Braille
optimized representation on the Braille display that VIRGO had since years and years.
With it's powerful script engine Cobra can be very easy adapted to an extremely
wide variety of applications. Thanks to the open functionality of our systems, individual
users can exchange these scripts amongst one another.
The simple and flexible integration of Braille displays within private and
work areas is becoming more and more important. Cobra can work perfectly together with
more than 70 different types of Braille displays of various manufacturers and
therefore offers a transparent and future-proof accessibility solution that is able to
communicate with modern Braille displays through both USB and BlueTooth.
The fully renewed user interface is the targeted result of an intensive
co-operation between our software engineers and our users. This has resulted in a user
interface that can be used intuitively and without the disturbance of searching. Also
internet pages programmed in Flash, complicated tabular structures and many more
challenging layouts are no problem anymore for this powerful tool.
COBRA is at present in the final phase of its development.
Editorial
How will cutbacks in the airline industry affect special needs travelers?
December 2008
By Donna J Jodhan
How will cutbacks in the airline industry affect special needs travelers?
For the past few months, we have been witnessing a succession of airline slashing and cutbacks. Most of them have been right here in North America with airlines blaming the rising price for oil for their actions. All well and good, but we have been receiving many emails with the burning question: Will this affect the quality of traveling for persons with special needs?
Not only are airlines cutting routes, but they are also cutting jobs and everyone knows only too well that when budgets are cut, one of the first things to be slashed is services for special needs persons. So, let us look at this a bit more closely.
1. Jobs are cut. This means that there is less staff around to do the same amount of work. There is still the same number of passengers who will be needing assistance at the airport and as a matter of fact the number of passengers requiring assistance is expected to keep rising. Why? Because of a rapidly aging population, and more and more persons with disabilities wanting to travel.
2. So now, certain routes are being cut and this means that in many instances, travelers will now not be able to take a direct route to their destination. In order to get to their destination, they are now being forced to take more than one plane. More pressure on airline staff to provide services to special needs persons.
3. As alluded to above, more and more seniors are traveling these days because they are the ones with the money to travel and with a rapidly aging population; this trend is only going to keep increasing.
I wonder out loud, how are airlines planning to address these types of concerns? Yes, the price of oil is skyrocketing these days, airlines are reacting by cutting jobs and routes, but they are also doing something else that is worrying. They are cutting meals on many of their domestic and short run flights, and they are also charging for checked in luggage. Some thing new. The experts are saying that the airline industry has only itself to blame for being in this predicament. They should have seen this coming and should have been better prepared. I along with many others would venture to say that for the most part, airlines have taken advantage of their consumers by charging exorbitant air fares in the past and now with this new dilemma on their hands, their fares are only going to increase through the sky if you look at it in this way; but back to my original question.
Just some wee words of wisdom to the airline industry: Whatever you do, please, do not cut services to your special needs travelers. They are today's travelers and will continue to be tomorrow's consumers and will be your bread and butter revenue for many years to come. They are demanding and persistent and they are being supported by several advocacy organizations as well as powerful legislation. We are about to enter into the busy travel season, so please tread carefully.
Comments to the editor
December 2008
From the desk of the editor
Season's greetings to all of our readers and from the desk of the editor we would like to wish each and every one of you the most joyous Christmas, and the very, very best for 2009. We would like to thank all of you for your helpful feedback and comments and we look forward to receiving more from you in the New Year.
Here now are your comments for December.
From Nico Cazinsky of Warsaw Poland:
I like much the September winning article. How would you like to visit Poland and give some lectures to our blind community?
From Ted Sharply of Essex England:
I wish the STAE team the very best and encourage you to keep on fighting the good fight. I have been reading about the case that your president Donna J Jodhan has launched against the Canadian government and I say good for you. As the Irish would say, may the wind be at your back!
Merry Christmas!
From Marco Botelli of Milan Italy:
Greetings from Milan! Just wanted to let you know that your magazine is being read by many of us here in Milan. We are motivated by your effort.
From Sheldon Steiner of New York:
Well, what can I say. Another magazine with a lot to say but do you really walk the walk as you try to make us believe? Come now, time to be honest with your readers.
From Glenn Carne of Washington DC:
I am truly impressed by Donna Jodhan's blogs at www.numpadplus.com. Good for you Donna! A sure shining example.
From Joan Wolf of San Jose California:
I think that this magazine can put in a much better effort when it comes to understanding the true issues about blindness. Maybe they should try to give us more news on issues of blindness.
From Marie Windsor of Kent England:
O boy! I really love Donna's editorials. They are downright honest and really hit home. Keep up the wonderful work Donna.
From Peter Pandolfo of Miami Florida:
Can anyone tell me where I can find some chess tournaments for blind persons? I am blind and have been playing chess for a few years now.
From Laura Yardley of Sussex England:
I like the approach of this magazine and it has a great mix of articles. Terrific reading if you ask me.
From Renee Richard of Montreal Canada:
I would really like to see this magazine do an exposé on the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Those guys are nothing but a bunch of idiots and clowns. They are not protecting the rights of blind persons in Canada.
From Hal Guencho of New Hampshire:
So many blind persons are quick to complain that they are not being given a decent chance to prove themselves to society. Maybe so, but it's time for them to stand together and do something instead of complaining.
If you have something to say, an opinion to express, or anything that you wish to share with the rest of the world, then please send it on to info@sterlingcreations.ca.
Comments to the editor are yours and yours alone. All comments are reviewed to ensure appropriate language.
Notes
If you would like to contribute an article to our magazine then please contact us at:
Tel (416) 491-7711
Email info@sterlingcreations.ca
Comments to the editor can be submitted free of charge.
All submissions are reviewed and you will be notified if yours is chosen. If your submission is chosen for “the reader’s choice” section of our magazine we will print it at no cost.
If you’re looking for a one-stop writing shop then look no further!
At www.sterlingcreations.ca you will find experienced professionals standing by to offer affordable Sterling services in the following areas:
Research, Writing, translation, and transcription.
We can do anything from articles and blogs to newsletters, emails and faxes to speeches, brochures and books to websites, plus more.
Please send all inquiries to info@sterlingcreations.ca.
Looking for affordable translation services?
At www.translationpeople.com you will find qualified translators and language coaches to help you in the following languages:
English, Spanish, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin.
These experienced professionals can help you to write, translate, and transcribe to and from these languages.
For all inquiries please send your emails to info@translationpeople.com.
If you’re looking for ways to keep abreast of the latest news wires, trends and strategies, or ideas for creating your own small business, then you can take advantage of lots of free information by visiting www.untappedwealth.com.
There you’ll find skilled researchers and writers willing to help you with your challenges.
For all inquiries send your emails to info@untappedwealth.com.
