So it turns out that Tako is blind. We knew something wasn’t right, as sometimes she wouldn’t respond to toys waved in front of her nose, and she would come tearing around the corner in the bedroom and run right into the legs of one of the dressers with the cutest little [thump] sound. Since […]
Category Archives: Disability
McGill Disability Awareness Week 12-16 March 2012
Perhaps it’s always been this way, but from my perspective it seems that the Office for Students with Disabilities at McGill has been expanding their mandate in productive ways. Where I used to think of them as a part of student services (which they most emphatically still are), they are getting more involved in promoting […]
Disability Theory Quote of the Day
“Constructing the axis on which disabled and nondisabled fall will be a critical step in marking all points along it.” –Simi Linton, “Reassigning Meaning,” in Lennard J. Davis, ed, The Disability Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 2010), 235 (originally in Simi Linton, Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity (NYU Press, 1998)). Today’s seminar topic was identity […]
Speech Impairment: in the news, in the booth, at some parties, and in situ
Yesterday’s New York Times had a story on sports figures with temporary vocal cord paralysis–announcers Joe Buck and Dick Vitale, and referee Mike Pereira. The piece more or less exactly describes my own difficulties. Here’s Pereira talking about himself and Buck: “You have to reach more into your diaphragm to get the vocal cords to […]
The Sorry Bus
While waiting for EBR. . .work!
As it did in January, blogging has slowed down as life has sped back up, which all things considered is a good thing. My voice is good enough that I only use the speech amp in large groups and particularly loud settings. I am tired pretty much all the time and get downright, face-on-the-floor exhausted […]
Speaker Voice Phenomenology, or “Just Another Asshole with a Bluetooth Headset”
One of the non-loaner headsets arrived last week. It is shockingly overpriced for what it is, and the amp has the hilarious name “Spokeman” which must be a mistranslation of either “Speakman” (as in “Walkman”) or “Spokesman.” You choose a headset to go with it and as I have a rather large head (hence outside […]