324: friday morning news and coffee roundup

Deaf people don't read, they say. (Obviously never observing Deaf people with sidekicks, laptops, and closed captioning.) We read all the time. But every now and then I like to point out fresh perspectives on news articles.

This is awwwww-worthy:

Michael, 14, who was born deaf and wears hearing aids in both ears, was out walking his dog Benji when he saw Bradley waving and shouting for help while his group of friends looked on, horrified.
Michael, a pupil at the deaf and hearing impaired unit at Castleford High School, said: "I saw Bradley in the water splashing around and noticed his face change and look worried.
"I ran as fast as I could to help him and by the time I had got there he was at the bottom of the quarry. I didn't really think about what I was doing, I was just frightened he was going to die."
Michael, a strong swimmer, leapt from the quarry edge into the water and pulled Bradley out by his hair before dragging him on to dry land.
Michael, who lives with his mum on Throstle Row, Knottingley, said: "After I pulled him out he was choking so I hit him on the back a few times and he started breathing again."
The quick-thinking teenager then ran to Bradley's home nearby and told his father what had happened.

More importantly: more hospitals providing ASL terps. Which is great - most Deaf people with mental problems who can't advocate for themselves, still don't get terps that easily. But it still provides problems, because terps are much more effective when they get speciality training in the medical field. Think I'm bitching too much? In 1997 I entered Haverford College and had to take required science classes. Loving science, I was eager. But the interpreter situation was impossible. I had a few people actually stand up and leave because the material was too complicated. Since my field wasn't in science, I decided to reduce my own struggles by transferring... eventually I had to finish up in geology. In some ways you are limited, when you use an interpreter, to the interpreter's abilities...