Dear Friends,

We plan a very rich, wholesome, cheerful, and memorable contribution
to the Deafnation Expo experience this coming April in Pomona. You all
be wary of anyone sending or forwarding out emails telling we're doing
something else there. Last year we made a positive and memorable
impact on the future deaf generation and this year, we will do it again.

Bob Davila's actions have gone as predicted in the editor's previous
blog and vlog submissions. The visibility of the future of deaf
society emerge at Gallaudet University hopefully by the end of April 2007.

We have been getting plenty of accolades for making the holiday cards
and toys accessible to the blind and the deaf-blind. We do things
that otherwise most toy companies and even organizations serving the
blind don't even consider doing to make things accessible to the
blind. We are sad to report that one such organization, Lighthouse
for the Blind , has people who chose to be critical of our products.
They too offer toys and games, but at prices that makes most of them
them practically inaccessible. Not only do we make things physically
accessible to blind people, we also make them economically accessible
as well.

Our newsletter will be taking on a new appearance soon. It's going to
be shorter and carry the same rich advocacy. It's going to be
colorful as it is going to carry pictures. And this newsletter will
be reflecting some of the changes. Enjoy!

Thanks Hollywood! Movie studios have been buying hundreds of dollars
worth of assistive technology from, us! Maybe we'll see our products
on the silver screen.

We cant help but notice the deafread's blog awards voting page don't
list any blogs that represent the future of deaf society. This sends
a strong yet very sad message about a website that claims to be the
conglomerate of the deaf blogs.

We are getting ourselves ready for the big education campaign of 2007
with the kickoff at the Orange County Mixer in March.

We still have the 14 month 2007 English-Spanish-ASL calendars for sale
now. Check our ebay catalog item
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230057779149?refid=store
and they make great gifts.!

We still have a huge stock of American Sign Language Alphabet
Placemats this year we wont run out like we did last year.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230053135704?refid=store
and they also make great gifts too.

Do your shopping at our eBay store today! Lots of NEW products for
the deaf, and blind, and other disabilities. We also have products
for people with Cochlear Implants and people who need FM systems.
Remember your parents, grand parents, brothers, sisters, family
members, co-workers who need adaptive equipment. Employers can shop
here for equipment and accessories for their hearing impaired workers.
Stop by http://stores.ebay.com/OCDAC-Adaptive-Equipment-and-More
today to start your shopping.

OCDAC Communications
ocdac@...
http://www.deafadvocacy.org/img/keycard.jpeg

-------------< INSIDE NEWS >

With our subscribership from the international communities increasing
at a steady pace, we wish to make this newsletter accessible to them
and the easiest way to accomplish this is by directing them to
http://www.babelfish.altavista.com/ and entering
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocdacnewsletter/ in the website
translation box and the babelfish will help our international
subscribers become strong advocates for the deaf and disability
communities.

This weekly newsletter is now available in print form to be mailed out
each week. The price is going to be $90 per year for the print
version and the price is highly reasonable due to it's very rich deaf
and disability advocacy content and very little advertising. This
still beats out the other deaf print news that are chock full of
distracting advertisements. They are now available in other
alternative formats like floppies, braille, and in large print for
people with vision impairments. For more information, please email
ocdac@...

Our Campbell's product label collection campaign to help us raise the
means to get supplies for our office is producing results. Start
saving your Campbells product labels today and mail them to us on the
first week of each month. We have aproximately 1600 subscribers and
if each one of them accumulates and sends us 900-1000 labels a month,
we'd be able to get lots of new equipment for our office and internal
and external education programs! Lets get those labels coming. Our
big thanks to those who sent in their labels.

-------------< ANNOUNCEMENT >

Take a look and bookmark our new search page!
http://www.deafadvocacy.org/search.html It's a good source of
information you can use.

-------------< OUTSIDE NEWS PART 1/3 >

The State of the Union for People with Disabilities
http://www.nod.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewPage&pageID=1430&nodeID=1&Featu\
reID=1649&redirected=1&CFID=11982077&CFTOKEN=88265417

In response to President Bush's State of the Union address, National
Organization on Disability presents its own State of the Union,
focusing on issues important to people with disabilities, such as
employment and emergency preparedness.

-------------< CALIFORNIA DEAFIE HAPPENINGS >

COME TO OUR MEETUPS!

The Orange County American Sign Language Meetup Group -
http://asl.meetup.com/37/ - and the he Orange County Deaf & Hearing
Impaired Meetup Group http://deaf.meetup.com/38/ meets each 3rd
Fridays of the month.

Come to our meetup on February 16, 2006.

The Orange County American Sign Language & Orange County Deaf &
Hearing Impaired Meetup.

When:
Friday, February 16, 7:00 PM

Where:
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
17595 Harvard Ave #B
Irvine, CA
(949) 660-1332

What:
Meet the 2 meetups

===================================

Oral Deaf Orange County Club

Come to our meetup on Tuesday February 6, 2007.

Oral Deaf Orange County Club

When:
Tuesday, February 6, 7:00 PM

Where:
Natále Coffee
2801 W. MacArthur A2
Santa Ana, CA
714-668-9094

-------------< ANNOUNCEMENT >

See what we offer at Ebay!
http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=ocdac

-------------< DEAF GRAPEVINE >

Deaf Culture and Gallaudet
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/21/AR2007012101118.\
html

In this op-ed piece from the Washington Post, N.O.D. Board Member and
former Gallaudet University President I. King Jordan expresses his
views on the recent rejection of Jane K. Fernandes as incoming
President of Gallaudet.

-------------< BULLETIN >

ACTION ALERT! Help Build a Case for ADA Restoration!

AAPD needs your compelling, real-life stories of employment
discrimination on the basis of disability to help make our case to
Congress that the Supreme Courts narrow interpretations of the
Americans with Disabilities Act have harmed people with disabilities
in employment and that its time to restore the original scope and
intent of the ADA! AAPD, in conjunction with the Consortium for
Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), will use these personal stories in
coming weeks to build bipartisan support while educating members of
Congress in a way which they can readily understand and relate to
about the need for a legislative fix to the ADA.

Background:
* In recent years, a number of Supreme Court decisions have
significantly reduced the protections available to people with
disabilities within employment settings.

* Courts are quick to side with businesses and employers, deciding
against people with disabilities who challenge employment
discrimination 97% of the time, often before the person has even had
a chance to show that the employer treated them unfairly.

* Courts have created an absurd Catch-22 by allowing employers to say
a person is too disabled to do the job but not disabled enough to be
protected by the ADA.

* People with conditions like epilepsy, diabetes, HIV, cancer,
hearing loss, and mental illness who manage their disabilities with
medication, prosthetics, hearing aids, etc. or mitigating measures
are viewed as too functional to have a disability and are denied the
ADAs protection from employment discrimination.

* People denied a job or fired because an employer mistakenly
believes they cannot perform the job or because the employer does
not want people like that in the workplace are also denied the ADAs
protection from employment discrimination.

This Is Not What Congress Intended When They Passed The ADA in 1990!

Who can help: ANYONE who has experienced employment discrimination on
the basis of his or her disability.

* Both those who have AND havent brought their claims to court

* Those who dont bother to go to court because theyve been told or
believe they cannot prove they have a disability

* Veterans with disabilities

What you can do: Send an email summary of your story what happened,
when it happened, and how it was resolved (if at all).

* Denials of reasonable accommodations
* Hiring discrimination
* Discriminatory firing and layoffs
* Harassment

When you should do it: We have an immediate need for these stories, so
please send these stories ASAP!

Where to send your stories: Please send your stories to Anne Sommers,
Policy Counsel at AAPD by email at aapdanne@....

(**We will not use your name or details of your story without first
receiving your express permission.**)

For more information, contact:

Anne C. Sommers. J.D.
Policy Counsel
American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD)
(202) 457-0046 (V/TTY)
800-840-8844 (V/TTY) toll-free
aapdanne@...

-------------< ANNOUNCEMENT >

Take a look and bookmark our new search page!
http://www.deafadvocacy.org/search.html It's a good source of
information you can use.

-------------< OUTSIDE NEWS PART 2/3 >

15 Years of ADA - Filled with Setbacks - and Victories

Commentary by Mike Ervin
January 26, 2007

Today, Jan. 26, is the 15th anniversary of the day the Americans with
Disabilities Act went into effect. Since then, a barrage of legal
challenges has rendered the ADA much weaker than envisioned.

Title I, which prohibits employment discrimination, has especially
taken a hit over the years. Employers from both the public and private
sectors have frequently challenged the ADA's definition of disability
and have narrowed the scope of who qualifies for protection under the
law. It is now a the point where people with such conditions as
diabetes, heart disease, cancer and significant vision loss have had
their cases dismissed because judges determined they don't qualify as
disabilities.

Employment discrimination suits brought under the ADA are rarely
successful in courts. Every year since 1992, the American Bar
Association has surveyed Title I cases, and each year the survey
reveals that employers have prevailed in more than 90 percent of the
decisions.

President Bush has helped undermine the law his father proudly signed
by appointing active opponents of the ADA to the federal bench.

In the infamous University of Alabama v. Garrett case in 2001, William
Pryor, who was then attorney general of that state, hired Jeffrey
Sutton to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that state governments
should be immune from Title I lawsuits brought forth by state
employees. Sutton and Pryor won. Bush subsequently placed both men on
the federal bench.

In spite of the setbacks, America is vastly more accessible than it
was 15 years ago. We have the ADA to thank for that. What made this
law revolutionary was that it extended the obligation not to
discriminate to the private sector. As a result, sometimes the mere
threat of legal action has brought about positive change for people
with disabilities.

One of the most monumental court victories brought about by the ADA
was the 1999 case of Olmstead v. L.C. and E.W. The Supreme Court ruled
the state of Georgia violated the ADA by arbitrarily warehousing two
women with disabilities in a state institution against their will. As
a result, many states have rightly shifted spending priorities away
from institutionalization and into community living programs.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice reached an out-of-court
agreement with NPC International that will make nearly all the 800
Pizza Hut restaurants the company operates more uniformly accessible
to people with mobility disabilities by the end of 2009.

The ADA also requires all new buses, trains and stations to be
wheelchair accessible. As a result, public transit access has improved
dramatically in the last 15 years.

These victories still make the ADA well worth celebrating.

Mike Ervin is a disability-rights activist with ADAPT (www.adapt.org).
He wrote this commentary for Progressive Media Project.

Progressive Media Project
409 East Main Street
Madison, WI 53703
Email: pmproj@...
Website: http://www.progressive.org

-------------< DEAF QUOTES >

"If not for Anita (O'Hara Buel), deaf ladies would, uh, where would we
go? Without her, I would feel so lost and helpless." Judy Brambrink

-------------< ANNOUNCEMENT >

Do you shop at Albertsons or Sav-on stores? You can get a free
community partners card at those stores and then add it to our list of
supporters. A percent of what you buy will go to helping our Deaf
youth program. If you already have a school or other program that you
are supporting, don't worry, you can add your card to support our
program too! It doesnt cost you anything more than your purchases to
be a supporter. There are two ways to add your card. You can email
your First and Last name with your phone number and community partners
card number to ocdac@... or you can download and print
our Albertsons / Sav-on Community Partners signup forms at
http://www.deafadvocacy.org/community/AlbertsonsSignup.pdf and have
your friends, neighbors, associates, and relatives sign up as
supporters and then mail the form to the address on the form. To reach
our funding goal we need 25,000 supporters who shop at Albertsons /
Sav-on. And remember to use your community partners card when you shop
at Albertsons or Sav-on.

-------------< COMMUNITY BULLHORN >

KUDOS TO SONNY JAMES!

Let's ask our state legislatures to enact similar legislation.

With a new legislature in Minnesota, it's been widely talked about
that there will be a state-wide smoking ban in indoor public places
and workplaces within a year or two. This has come through from many
cities adopting their own city-wide smoking ban ordinance. With this
ideology, I came up with an ordinance called 'Closed-Captioning
Enabled' ordinance for cities that will later on with the support of
many cities to become a state law and who knows, a federal law on
this. I am currently working on this to have it enacted in St. Paul,
Minnesota. Please feel more than free to copy this letter that I have
drafted and propose this to your city council and get this enacted.

Hello [Name],

My name is [ ]. I am interested in proposing a new city ordinance
for [City], [State]. I would like to meet with you to work together on
this to make it happen.

The ordinance that I have written is;

---

Closed-Captioning Enabled Ordinance

Effective Dates and Coverage Areas: July 1, 2007: this ordinance
requires closed-captioning feature to be enabled in all televisions at
all times in public indoor and outdoor places and workplaces.

---

This proposed ordinance is valuable to all people with hearing loss;
people with English as their second language; reduces the noise
pollution; children will rapidly learn to read.

I want to be clear about this proposed ordinance that this is not
requiring the television programs to be captioned. It merely asks that
the televisions to have its closed-captioning feature enabled so that
the closed-captioning will appear if the programs has it.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or
concerns. Again, I would very much like to work with you or others on
this to make this happen for our fellow citizens.

Thanks,
[Name]
[Home address]
[Phone number]
[E-mail address]

Visit the blog site of 'Self-Advocacy for the Deaf, by the Deaf' at
http://blog.deafread.com/sonnyjames and view all previous postings.

-------------< OUTSIDE NEWS PART 3/3 >

The Road To Freedom
http://roadtofreedom.wordpress.com/

The Road To Freedom is a national awareness campaign inspired by the
historic journey of Justin and Yoshiko Dart to mobilize support for
passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Our year-long,
cross-country bus journey launched from Washington, DC on November
15th, 2006 and aims to engage audiences across the United States in
the story of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the history of
the disability rights movement. We hope to mobilize Americans to keep
the promise of the ADA – freedom, inclusion, and opportunity for
children and adults with physical, mental, cognitive and developmental
disabilities.

Throughout this journey, national and state disability leaders will
be joined by young people with disabilities, family members and others
in a campaign to restore and strengthen the ADA.
Here's how we'll get the word out:

The Road to Freedom Bus will stop at more than 80 locations
nationwide, from state capitals to disability conferences to sporting
events to malls and parades.

Tom Olin's historical photographs of the struggle for disability
rights are featured in our traveling exhibit. Olin's work has been
featured at the Smithsonian Institute. This exhibit also includes a
narrative of the history of the disability rights movement and the ADA.

We plan press conferences, radio shows and TV interviews highlighting
both the obstacles —and the victories— of Americans with disabilities.
The tour will visit schools and colleges to design youth curriculum,
working with our partners, the National Youth Leadership Network.
The Road To Freedom bus tour and traveling exhibit is a project of ADA
Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights (NCDR), an
alliance of hundreds of disability, civil rights and social justice
organizations founded by disability rights advocate, Jim Ward.

-------------< LETTERS >

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce the release of a CD version of the Tool Kit
on Teaching and Assessing Students with Disabilities: Parents'
Materials designed to assist parents and states in their efforts to
work together to raise the achievement of all students with disabilities.

The Parent Tool Kit compiles materials identified to augment the
previously released CD, Tool Kit on Teaching and Assessing Students
with Disabilities, and offers a collection of resources on the same
substantive areas addressed, including assessment, instructional
practices, behavior and accommodations. These new documents were
written specifically for parents and include information they need as
they work with schools to ensure that their children are receiving a
quality education. Materials included in the new Parent Tool Kit
provide information that will help them become active and informed
participants in IEP discussions and other decision-making meetings
that support students with disabilities and their families.

To encourage broad dissemination of these materials, we have launched
a new Web site, www.osepideasthatwork.org/index.asp,which includes the
materials in the Parent Tool Kit. The websitewill continue to be
updated with additional materials as they become available.

This Parent Tool Kit is an example of the Department of Education's
ongoing commitment to ensuring that states, local school districts,
schools and families have the most current and relevant information
about practices that will improve and enhance education opportunities
for children with disabilities throughout the nation. We appreciate
the time you commit and the work you do every day to improve the
academic achievement of students with disabilities and hope you find
these materials useful in advancing achievement through strong
accountability and assessments for all students.

Sincerely,

John H. Hager
Assistant Secretary
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
U.S. Department of Education

-------------< EPILOG >

If you wish to contribute to this newsletter, feel free to send in
news, stories, and opinions relating to the disability community. Your
support in this effort to move the disability community forward will
be greatly appreciated. We will continue to aggressively pursue
justice, fairness, and equality for the disability community as it has
been doing since November 1996. We have chosen
that EDUCATION is the best way to accomplish this objective.

The Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center is a community based
organization that puts people with disabilities first in their
advocacy for equal opportunities in safety, health, and productive living.

The Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center provides services for disabled
individuals and their families in our community who need help in
navigating the social services maze. Every day people go without
proper food, shelter, and essential medical care every day due to a
variety of factors including low wages, job loss, injuries, illness,
age, domestic violence, or divorce. While all of us are susceptible to
hard times, disabled individuals are at the most risk. With the
generous support of people like you, we are able to help many of these
families and individuals not only to meet essential daily needs, but
to work toward a brighter future with programs in job training,
education, counseling, elderly assistance, and temporary housing.

Feel free to forward this email message to anyone and any of your
personal mailing lists so we can get the important messages out far
and wide and encourage them to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

DISCLAIMER: The OCDAC Newsletter is designed to share information of
interest to people with disabilities, their friends, associates, and
relatives and promote advocacy in the disability community.
Information circulated herein does not necessarily express the views
of The Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center. The OCDAC Newsletter is
non-partisan. OCDAC Newsletter does not sell advertising space.

Fair use in teaching and research

The 1976 Copyright Act provides important exceptions to the rights of
the copyright holder that are specifically aimed at nonprofit
educational uses of copyrighted works and libraries. Two provisions of
the copyright statute are of particular importance to teachers and
researchers: a provision that codifies the doctrine of "fair use,"
under which limited copying of copyrighted works without the
permission of the owner is allowed for certain teaching and research
purposes; and provision that establishes special exemptions for the
reproduction of copyrighted works by libraries and archives. The "fair
use" doctrine embodied in the Fair-Use Statute Section 107 of the 1976
Copyright Act, allows reproduction and other uses of copyrighted works
under certain conditions for purposes such as criticism, comment, news
reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use),
scholarship or research for educational and research purposes.

Our physical address is 2960 Main Street suite #100, Irvine California
92614 and this email is in compliance with CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

To subscribe to this newsletter go to
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