Outlook on Radio Western

"Love is sweet, have a treat."

This was the verse written on the wedding favours, pairs of homemade shortbread cookies by all our plates at a recent wedding we attended in the family and our third host, Barry, he made it into the photos and is back with us, for another mixed bag show, to share about the experience.

A wedding day or living with a disability, so many things in life are about learning to roll with it. We three share on Outlook this week about being blind in such a crowded, hectic social situation and how we already have some authority, being unable to see, when an unexpected part of the evening was when the power went out and all the guests were forced to find their way in the toilets in the dark.

We also discuss the tiresome infantilization of us by uneducated sighted people, including those running carnival rides, as Barry and Kerry once more discovered at a May 24 traveling amusement park when they were forbidden from going on a ride together on their own as a couple.

When do you speak up and advocate and when do you let it slide?

And in our second half, we revisit the early years of the life of Helen Keller along with Barry who knew very little about Keller's life. Brian and Kerry rewatched the 1962 film version of the meeting of Helen and her teacher and companion Anne Sullivan, while Barry experienced the story for the first time.

We and he give our thoughts on the title "The Miracle Worker" and its problematic connotations, about how films based on true events sometimes embellish and alter their true life timelines, and Barry gives his take as an Irishman on how well Anne Bancroft did with the accent her character would have had.

If you're like Barry and never really knew much about Helen Keller or her teacher, or even for a reminder of the lives the two lived beyond that one big, important year on which the movie was made, check out the Outlook episode we once put out on the full life of Helen Keller and stay tuned for a similar show on a fuller picture of Anne Sullivan's life story still to come.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-12-13-lights-camera-helen-keller/id1527876739?i=1000545091341

On June 1st, it will be three years since the initial release of the book "There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness" and its author and friend of the show Dr. M. Leona Godin is back with us, with us three live in studio. 

This   week on Outlook, we're catching up with Leona on what she's been up to in that time and more recently, along with Barry as our third co-host, as we three find out some of the latest projects and work Godin is focusing on including storytelling shows like "Sighted People Suck”. We discuss how she navigates a place like New York City where she lives, the responsibilities with having a guide dog at whatever age, and about the internal shame and ranking each other within the blindness community that goes on.

Leona shares about her experience with Daniel Kish who is well-known for his lifelong use of echo location, what he's famously recognized for, but how his work as a mobility instructor who knows the lived experience of being blind is much less understood and valued. Also, Godin tells us about what she's currently been reading on the broadening knowledge and awareness of something referred to as sensory studies, her "Scented Stories" performances, and a bit about the accessible tour of the Whitney Museum of American Art, along with the help of AI. 

Check out "There Plant Eyes" and more by going to her website:

https://drmlgodin.com

And if you missed her previous appearance on Outlook where she talks about her book, you can find it here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-10-11-there-plant-eyes-an-interview-with/id1527876739?i=1000538623498

Guide dog Oyster turned six on May 5th and we celebrate on this first episode of May with her and her guide dog teammate Barry, returning visitors and co-hosts as a part of our show.

This week, on the first half of Outlook and another mixed bag episode, speaking of oyster, Barry and co-host Kerry share about a recent guide dog refusal by a local cab driver in Kerry’s town.

On the second half we share three examples of different audio described versions, same scene, of the 1992 film “Scent of a Woman” about a character, who is depressed, and Celebrating one last hurrah in New York City, who was the first big representation of blindness for those of us living with the condition to see ourselves represented by on screen. We three discuss our feelings about the movie, its famous tango scene,and the different styles of audio description, UK vs North American.

“Tempus fugit” - Latin proverb meaning “time’s a wasting” or “time flies” as we on Outlook discuss disability and endless other things.

Our third co-host Barry (and guide dog Oyster) are back with us today. Times flying for Barry here in Canada, but this week we hear more from him about his life after blindness, in Ireland, and as he broadened out and began to travel on his own.

How he learned to be blind?

"It can be done."

We'll hear more about adventures with Barry and Oyster, her adventures in discovering for herself, as we talk guide dog vs white cane and other tools in our tool kits.

Why don't you have another guide dog?

We discuss Kerry and Barry ice skating and its similarity to tandem cycling, dealing with continued inaccessibility with our electronic braille devices and Bluetooth on our iPhones, and we finish off discussing a recent FB post from a blind person which had some in the blindness community talking. Thanks to Connor Scott-Gardner for their thoughtful words.

You can find their Facebook page with so many insightful posts including the one we covered on this show here:

https://www.facebook.com/p/Connor-Scott-Gardner-100082294361791/

“Top of the morning to ya,” says friend and boyfriend of co-hosts and siblings Brian and Kerry.

We’re here on Outlook this week with visiting guest hosts Barry and his guide dog Oyster, fresh from their journey all the way from Ireland.

From acquiring a pet passport to a fit-to-fly letter, Barry shares with us the process for travel with a guide dog and both of them are with us for the next few months on air.

Alongside talk of travel with a guide dog, we touch on last week’s Canadian federal budget announcement about the proposed Canada Disability Benefit, long promised by the Liberal government, but now the news is out that what they are offering is far less than was expected and what would put people with disabilities above the poverty line. So now Canadians with disabilities are not happy and not having it, speaking up where possible and we here are joining the chorus of voices, in a marginalised group often overlooked.

In the second part of the show, we speak with Rebecca Singh of Superior Description Services, who we’ve had on the show last year to learn about what Superior Description does and since then what co-host Kerry has been working on as accessibility consultant.

This time Rebecca is back to share with us all about next month’s Junior Festival, for children five to twelve, on the campus of the Harbour Front Centre in Toronto. Junior is an arts and creativity festival for young people, running during the weekend of May 18th to the 20th. Sunday, May 19th is set aside as Enhanced Accessibility Day for children with disabilities, blindness and all kinds. There will be offerings such as touch tours, sighted guides if needed, and plenty of audio description available on site and online at the Harbourfront Centre website, described by Rebecca and reviewed by Kerry as consultant.

Singh also shares with us another upcoming arts and creativity event she’s working on, including podcasts as supplements to the in-person events, this June in the GTA and around Toronto, known as Luminato.

So if you’re in the area in the coming months, for either one, check out the festivals and events on offer by going to their websites, contacting them by phone, or by email at the links, number, or email address below:

harbourfrontcentre.com/junior

416-973-4600

https://www.luminatofestival.com

https://superiordescription.com

Listen to Rebecca Singh’s previous Outlook appearance:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2023-03-06-international-womens-day-with/id1527876739?i=1000603364184

“Every time I look at you, I go blind.”

Solar eclipse, 2024 and the big topic around it all was eye protection. Thus the above lyrics from the Canadian band 54-40 song to start off the show.

It’s another Kerry Connection this week on Outlook as we look back on last week’s eclipse with Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen, Associate Professor of linguistics at Bowling Green State University.

As the 2023 Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/LOC Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation, we wanted to get her thoughts on, and her experience with the eclipse. We also talked being blind and her philosophy with it, being a kid, and being curious about science, and being steered away from the sciences as a blind student.

Co-host Kerry, as a young girl, watched Bill Nye the Science Guy and was fascinated by and drawn in by outer space. Sheri now works to make it more accessible for people of all abilities in space with her featured story on the Radiolab podcast, experiencing zero gravity and recording the findings of that experiment.

Going from not wanting to make a fuss to advocating, for the next generation - we talk possibility, perspective, and wonder, as we agree, it would be fun to be able to fly, but with all the things, that’s what space can provide.

Check out Sheri’s official website:

http://sheriwellsjensen.com

Find the Radiolab episode “The Right Stuff” featuring Sheri here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpe6azxvQpM

And give a listen to the quartet Grande Royale Ükulelists of the Black Swamp she plays with and their covers on this YouTube playlist relating to the recent eclipse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UksPZJJ9JY&list=PL_FJ_lKHsX5ENvB3uCIKZ1kPeAuJ7eBDf

Temperature change. Animals acting out of the ordinary. These are some non visual signs of an eclipse.

It's the day of the total solar eclipse, April 8th, 2024. We're here, on Outlook today with our Eclipse Soundscapes app with its rumble map, to discuss how we plan to join this giant party, an astronomical event we can and should all be able to share in.

We talk an accessible eclipse experience, co-host Kerry plays a little Be My AI game of "what's the same in these two pics?" and April 7th was Green Shirt Day and co-host Brian reflects on what would have been his 25-year kidney transplant anniversary this month.    

From nephrology to ophthalmology and with themes of darkness and light, as the moon starts to obscure the sun's light and the threat of looking and damaging one's sight - all of this is our bread and butter on this show and we'll have a follow-up episode to follow this one where we discuss all of this with someone who definitely knows the subject.

To check out the accessible app, search for “Eclipse Soundscapes” on the app store or learn more on the official website:

https://eclipsesoundscapes.org

Check out more information on Green Shirt Day:

https://greenshirtday.ca/about/

And listen to the ophthalmologist we both grew up seeing, Dr. Phil Hooper, on the CBC speaking about the dangers of staring at a solar eclipse without proper eyewear:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-158-london-morning/clip/16053698-staring-solar-eclipse-without-proper-eyewear-damage-eyes

WAKE UP AMERICA!

As we wrap up Women's History Month, co-host Kerry shares about a recent panel put on by the Paul Longmore Institute On Disability Studies featuring black and brown disabled women and co-host Brian shares about March also being Epilepsy Awareness Month, started by a young girl right here in Canada. And, of course, don't forget about the upcoming solar eclipse in April.

This week on Outlook it's story time and we're reading March's featured spotlight on a deaf-blind woman in history, someone we can spotlight to tell the stories of more than just Helen Keller.

Thanks to Peggy Chong, The Blind History Lady, for letting us know about Helen May Martin.

Believe it or not.

For more fascinating stories like this one delivered directly to your inbox, email Peggy Chong: [email protected]

Check out her official website: https://theblindhistorylady.com

And listen to The Blind History Lady when she joined us on Outlook back in 2020:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2020-08-10-interview-with-the-blind-history-lady/id1527876739?i=1000488226679

CAUDES stands for Certified Audio Description Specialist.

This week on Outlook we’re speaking with Lolly Lijewski and Kim Charlson about recently released draft certification guidelines and criteria open for public comments until March 31st. Kim is Chair of the Academy for Certification of Visual Rehabilitation & Education Professionals/Subject Matter Experts Committee and Lolly and co-host Kerry met originally when taking some AD training and have since gone on to form a group of blind and sighted members who practice the art of crafting audio description together because we believe the collective collaborative team makes for a more authentic and representational finished product.

Now we have some thoughts and some questions about these proposed and drafted certification guidelines and Kim is with us to lay it all out. Everyone involved only wants the best quality product in the end for blind consumers and we’re happy to have this discussion as we look ahead to next steps in audio description’s evolution.

You can download and read the CAUDES Draft Certification Criteria by clicking this link:

https://www.acvrep.org/resource/docs/DRAFT%20Certified%20Audio%20Description%20Specialist%20certification%20criteria%201-2024.docx

Please consider sending any questions or comments on the criteria to [email protected]

(include CAUDES in the subject line)

If you’d like the document sent directly to your inbox, you can email Kim at [email protected]

And find the Audio Description Project here:

https://adp.acb.org

Co-host Kerry wears her (diversity includes disability) Aille Design braille T-shirt to remind us of the roles of disabled women throughout history.

This week on Outlook it’s another mixed bag, as we celebrate World Kidney Day on March 14th. Co-host Brian shares a recent healthcare scare he experienced, we run into someone who understands in a hospital waiting room, and we discuss a particular inclusive art exhibit from Vancouver to Ottawa. We are (drawing on our history) for the remainder of Women’s History Month.

If you’re interested in a braille t-shirt for yourself or a friend, check out Aille Design:

https://ailledesign.com/en-ca/products/braille-t-shirt

And find the VocalEye Almost Live event “Drawing on Our History” here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh2TLAgcCBI