|
Thoughts on Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic
North Miami Beach, FL May 23, 2002
A.H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
THOUGHTS ON READING FOR THE BLIND AND DYSLEXIC
Carol and I were fortunate to be able to drive (my surgeon says it
is ok for me drive today) down to South Miami and get an interesting book to
read. I forget the title but it was about comparative religions. We were
assigned the end of the book and are sorry to have missed all the stuff
before. It seems that there is such a thing as "eco-feminism" to be aware
of when thinking in religious terms. There are the dualists of antiquity,
the Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Moslems and all are similar in
some degree but they all have missed what two ladies (I can't remember their
names) are pointing out. What these women are saying is that the
male-centric religious institutions inherited from the beginning of time
still stress the idea of authoritarianism but that we must also deal with
female and ecological (animals, plants and well, the earth) interests and
viewpoints.
This is not about the book on comparative religions. It is just
musing on the delight Carol and I feel at being able to glimpse into works
that scholars and thinkers have created for whatever purpose they had in
mind. They wrote, we read and some blind or dyslexic person will listen to
the voices of many volunteers who cooperated to make recordings that go into
homes all over the world.
We learned today a little of the scope of RFB&D (Recording for the
Blind and Dyslexic). It truly is world wide. We found out that the
preparation of the pages of the books we are assigned to read is done in
India and other operations are taken care of in many other distant places.
This is a huge business and the heart and soul of it is in the readers who
are all volunteers. Carol and I are honored to have passed the tests to see
if we had the proper talents that make a good reader. We see on the walls
of our Unit the names of all the people who have accumulated thousands of
hours sitting in little sound-proof booths in front of microphones. We all
wear earphones and watch for signals through the window the monitor will
make when you get something wrong and then take you back until you get it
right.
Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10
|
 |
|