The Blind Side

In Britain, legislation has been introduced to Parliament that would require all taxi drivers to have completed disability awareness training. The move comes after what would appear to be rampant discrimination against guide dog handlers there. Bonnie Mosen joins us as we discuss the issue, and we seek your experiences with taxis and ride sharing services. If you’re a guide dog handler, how common an occurrence is it where you are to experience discrimination.

Then on a lighter note, Jonathan speaks with Jarek Beksa from Audio Game Hub, a talented team of people from the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. They’ve designed a series of top-quality audio games for blind people to play on multiple platforms, and a successful Kickstarter campaign will see more games available soon. But it’s not yet too late to make a contribution.

Learn more about Audio Game Hub at http://www.AudioGameHub.com.

The Blind Side Podcast Episode 16, Marty Schultz from Blindfold Games by Jonathan Mosen

Just after midnight on Monday 14 November, a massive 7.8 earthquake shook much of New Zealand. No matter how well-adjusted we are as blind people, an unexpected natural disaster like this can be humbling and frightening.

This week, we speak with Teri Mcelroy, who has lived through some serious quakes in Christchurch over the last six years, and Mushroom FM fun guy Anthony Horvath, who is based in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, where the quake closed businesses for a couple of days and will cause the demolition of at least two buildings.

They’ll talk about what it’s like to be in such a large quake, and offer some advice about some of the things we as blind people need to consider when preparing for a natural disaster that could come when we least expect it.

On last week’s Mosen Explosion, heard on Sundays at 2 PM Eastern time and then repeated on Tuesdays at 5 AM Eastern time on Mushroom FM, we broadcast a tour Bonnie and Jonathan took of the Seeing Eye. The response was so positive to this, with many people asking for it to be available for download, that we’re including it in this week’s podcast.

First, Bonnie Mosen gives us some background to The Seeing Eye and how it was founded. Then, Jim Kutsch, President of The Seeing Eye, takes us around some of the great facilities.

Learn more about The Seeing Eye at its website, http://www.TheSeeingEye.org

We conclude with an extended editorial from Jonathan Mosen on the US Presidential election. What might the result mean for the blind community, and is there a pressing need for electoral reform in the US?

The phrase “Nothing About us Without Us” is a catch cry of the disability movement. Yet there’s still a lot of disability training and policy that lacks meaningful direction and input from disabled people themselves.

Pam MacNeill has had a long and successful career, recently in fields pertaining to disability policy. She’s just set up her own company, Disability Responsiveness New Zealand.

In this candid conversation with Jonathan Mosen, Pam discusses her personal story, and looks at the challenges disabled people face today in a range of areas, including what New Zealanders call the tall poppy syndrome.

Visit Disability Responsiveness New Zealand at http://www.drnz.co.nz

The Blind Side Podcast Episode 12, Judy Dixon by Jonathan Mosen

Blind Citizens Australia is the advocacy organization for blind Australians, and Emma Bennison has been its President for a year. During a visit to New Zealand, Emma

Blind Citizens New Zealand isn’t only the oldest advocacy organisation driven by disabled people themselves in New Zealand, it’s also one of the oldest blindness consumer advocacy organisations worldwide.

Following their conference last week, Jonathan Mosen speaks with Clive Lansink, National President of Blind Citizens New Zealand. We learn about the history of Blind Citizens New Zealand, and some of the challenges facing the organisation and blind New Zealanders today.

Jonathan begins this week with a recent experience he had in a lawyer’s office that got him thinking about the legal profession and outdated attitudes about blindness.

We meet Eric Miller from the Rush Miller Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing tandem bicycles for blind people and a sighted bike mate to use. Learn more about the Foundation at http://www.rushmillerfoundation.org.

We then hear from Jeremy Cooperstock from McGill University in Canada about Autour, a navigation app that is trying an innovative approach to providing blind people with information about what’s around them.

Social media has been abuzz with talk of a fund raising campaign for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Called “How Eye See It”, the campaign invites sighted people to blindfold themselves and perform a range of tasks, then make a donation to the Foundation. But the National Federation of the Blind says rather than show people what it’s really like to be blind, the campaign perpetuates inaccurate and harmful myths about blindness. Jonathan Mosen speaks with Chris Danielsen from NFB. We have extended an invitation to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to appear on the podcast. We did not receive a reply to our invitation by the time of publication, however the invitation remains open.