The Blind Side

This week, we begin a series of interviews with representatives of New Zealand political parties, ahead of the 23 September general election.

Jonathan Mosen speaks with Green MP and Disability Issues spokesperson Mojo mathers. Mojo, who is Deaf, is New Zealand’s only member of Parliament with a significant disability.

She discusses what it’s like to be the only disabled MP, some issues of significance facing disabled people in New Zealand, and how the Green Party would tackle them.

It’s a problem many blind people are all too familiar with. We’re wide awake in the middle of the night, and have an uncontrollable urge to sleep in the middle of the day. It can make life utterly miserable, in terms of maintaining a schedule in sync with our friends and family, and performing at our best on the job. We now call this phenomenon non-24, and there are things you can do about it.

Even if you’re lucky enough not to be affected by non-24, most of us could do with more, and better quality, sleep in this fast-paced connected world of ours.

To talk about sleep in general, and the challenges many blind people face with sleep in particular, Jonathan Mosen talks with Professor Steven Lockley, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He’s a neuro-scientist with an interest in sleep and circadian disorders. He’s spent considerable time examining the issue of blind people and sleep, and how non-24 might be treated. [...]

This week’s podcast focusses on technology that gives blind people easier access to visual information.

The hot topic in the blind community on social media since its release a couple of week’s ago is an iOS app from Microsoft called Seeing AI. It’s a Swiss army knife of visual tools, offering some functions available in some other apps, but also breaking new ground in the use of artificial intelligence to give blind people descriptions of people and scenes. An app like this has been the dream of Saqib Shaikh, a blind developer who has worked for Microsoft for over a decade. Thanks to Microsoft’s technology and resources, he’s seeing that dream becoming reality, and is able to share that dream with us in the form of a free app. Jonathan Mosen speaks with Saqib about Seeing AI, then demonstrates the app and how he is already using it daily, including to transform his use of social media.

There is a second service that has gone live recently [...]

In the early days of accessibility-related email lists, Kelly Ford was a vocal, articulate advocate who wasn’t hesitant to hold companies to account for accessibility issues. Then he became an insider, still making the world a better place in a quieter, more effective capacity. Having just completed a 16.5 year stint at Microsoft, where he held various roles, Kelly joins Jonathan Mosen to talk advocacy and accessibility, and share a few memories.

On Friday, submissions close on a standard that has been drafted by the Canadian General Standards Board CGSB. It stipulates with exceptional detail what constitutes a service dog team, including the behaviour and abilities of both members of the team, the human and the dog.

Critics of the proposed standard accuse the CGSB of a paternalistic, big brother-style encroachment into the lives of disabled people, and many guide dog handlers are concerned that the proposal seems to take no account of effective industry regulation that has served guide dog handlers and the public well.

Some US guide dog schools are suggesting they may need to decline to provide service to Canadians if this standard is adopted.

It’s unclear what the consequences will be for people travelling to Canada with guide dogs that are accepted everywhere else but which will not meet this standard if it is adopted.

And if you’re outside Canada and wondering why you should conc [...]

A group of blind people in the United States are frustrated by their inability to book travel independently using the Greyhound website and apps. When they’ve sought help from the call center, they were charged a convenience fee. They’ve filed a lawsuit which is supported by the National Federation of the Blind. Jonathan Mosen speaks with Chris Danielsen from NFB about this specific suit, and looks at case law on web and app accessibility.

“Go Where You Wanna Go” is Judy Dixon’s latest book published by National Braille Press. It looks at GPS apps for iOS. Judy joins Jonathan to talk about the book, and the many choices we now have to help us get around.

From time to time on The Blind Side, we like to look at self-care issues from a blindness perspective. This time, we look at perhaps one of the most misunderstood methods for achieving positive change in your life, hypnosis. Many people think of hypnotists as slightly creepy people who dangle a watch in front of your face and make you do weird things. Is that true, and is it even possible for a blind person to be hypnotised?

Jonathan Mosen speaks with hypnotherapist Andrew Johnson. Andrew offers an extensive collection of apps for iOS and Android. Just what can hypnosis do for you, and how does it work?

At the end of the podcast, Andrew will conduct a hypnotherapy session. For this part of the podcast, which begins at around 55 minutes in, we highly recommend that you listen to it when you are somewhere you’re not going to be disturbed, and you’re not performing any other task.

Bonnie Mosen has a popular book in the Mosen Consulting Store, “It’s Off to Work We Go”, offering tips and tricks for blind job seekers. People who purchase that book have had access to a job club. Bonnie talks about the challenges of being a blind job seeker, and we announce that the next meeting of the job club is open to all.

There’s a new audiobook in The Mosen Consulting Store on Zoom Cloud Meetings, called “Meet Me In the Cloud”. We give you a free sample of the book that demonstrates how easy it is to attend meetings using this highly accessible product.

Jonathan Mosen speaks with Kliphton Miller about Frontier Airlines, who turned what should have been a pleasant flight with his 18-month-old granddaughter into a day of discrimination and frustration.

Paul Mugambi is a Kenyan advocate and musician. Currently studying on a scholarship in Australia, Paul talks with Jonathan about some of the advocacy triumphs and challenges blind people in Kenya are facing. We conclude the podcast with a great song from Paul.

Right after Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference keynote, Jonathan Mosen is joined by Jeff Bishop, Heidi Mosen and David Woodbridge to bring you analysis and further information from the slides that wasn’t discussed by the presenters.