E-book Review: The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham

 Hello everyone,

It has been quite a while since I have posted a book review on the blog. Having served as judge for the Global E-book Awards has prevented me from posting any reviews on what I read until the winners are announced in August. This is the first book I have completed reading since.

 

     

     The Dragon's Path, by Daniel Abraham is a story set in medieval times in a different world. According to its written history, the world was created by dragons, who once ruled everything. They created man and all its different races to serve them. The dragons have long since been gone, and now its the age of man that rules, although the races are still somewhat in the caste system the dragons had intended them. I will attempt to give you more vague details so as not to give you the story itself.

     The story itself follows different characters. Two such characters are nobles under the Antean king. Dawson is the king's childhood friend who plays the political game amongst the other nobles to win the kings favor in the name of preserving the kingdom. Geder is the son of Lerer, another noble. Geder is continually picked on and humiliated by other nobles and lords for being out of shape, gullible, and a bookworm (more specifically speculative essays concerning the dragons' histories). He becomes a pawn in the schemes of adversarial nobles who try to win the kings favor. Along the way he becomes somewhat of a reluctant hero/mass murderer, depending on the view. From there he comes into his own with the aide of Basraship (very key figure) and quickly ascends rank and title under the king.
      

    The other story centers around the characters Marcus Wester and Cithrin. Marcus is a world famous captain who lost his family and now works for hire. His partner, Yardem is his lifelong companion in battle who stays with him. They are hired by a bank to smuggle its wealth into another city in fear of the Antean invasion of the city Vanai. The bank sends Cithrin, a ward of the bank. She is disguised as a young boy to deliver the smuggled wealth. Captain Wester hires an acting troupe to be pretend guards for the operation. Mishaps occur and they end up in the free city of Port Oliva, where Cithrin takes major risks to protect the wealth and start a life of her own. 
 

     The King's Blood is the second book in this series. By the end of The Dragon's Path the two plot lines have barely intersected. It should be interesting to see how they intertwine later.
 

As for my opinion of the book itself, I found it to be an enjoyable read. Its difficult for me to accurately describe, but his use of metaphors are pleasant, and go a long way in describing characters in ways that hold my interest, whereas many other authors would leave me incredibly bored.
 

     It is also worth noting that he is not taking the classic good versus evil approach. Characters fall into varying degrees of good and evil and I think it relies heavily on the reader's own interpretations. These are what makes it a good book for me. I will most definitely be looking forward to part 2, The King's Blood. 
 

     I give The Dragon's Path a solid 4 star rating. It's not too far from being even better, but the lack of quality editing was apparent. Simple spelling mistakes and grammatical errors were not rampant, but enough for me to remember it. I encourage anyone who enjoys reading fantasy to pick this one up and give it a go. You may be surprised at what you get.

 

Be on the lookout for Audism Experiment #3 within the next week. It should be fun. I am still collecting data for experiment 2. 

 

Until next time,

 

R. M.  

Audism Experiment #2

Hello to all,

My last post was an experiment in seeing what ads would come up on this blog based on the labels I attached to the post. These were the attached labels;

-adsense
-Audism 
-cochlear implants 
-CODA
-Deaf
-Deaf community 
-Deaf Culture 
-google
-hearing aids
-social experiment

This is a screenshot of the ads I saw when I viewed the post from my computer.

That was posted near the top of the page... Here's the one that was on the side of my page.

So I guess that is my result. There was one ad titled "Language Professors Hate Him". That one to me is a discard. Ive seen that ad all over the place. Of the other five I had one for Interpreter positions, so that's good to see. Culturally Deaf people do use interpreters. Then there was one for Deaf Personals, so that one is ok. Then there is the one for "Breakthrough Hearing Aids". Companies and Audists have been claiming that  for every new technology they come out with, and it's always a disappointment. This ad can definitely be defined as audist in nature. Now that leaves me with the other 2 ads. One for respite care of children with developmental disabilities. That relates to nothing in the labels I attached, does it. Deaf people are disabled? Hmmmmm...  The other for a master's degree in k-12 special education. Deaf children are special needs and require special ed classrooms? Again, not related to my labels. 


Now for the results from those of you who took the time to tell me what you saw via facebook. (Many thanks to you all - it was a huge help)


- 3 people found hearing aid ads
- 1 for cochlear implants
- 1 for interpreters
- 1 for an Audi clearance sale Audism = Audi the car, lol, love it!
- 1 for a talent management program
- 1 for a research group
- 1 for an electronic stethoscope for the hearing impaired (theres that nasty Audistic term)


So far, so good. Now let's consider this post to be Part 2 of the experiment. This time I will change the labels to this;


- cochlear implants
- hearing aids
- hearing impaired
- disabled
- disabilities


I think this should be a nice control group for the experiment. I believe there may be two more parts after this. Again, I encourage you all to post comments either here or on facebook and tell me what ads you see. I got wonderful response from you last time, so let's keep this up! I can;t wait to see these results! 


Until net time,

R. M.

Audism Experiment

Hello to everyone. I would like to make note of the slight changes to the page. I have started using Google Adsense to see how it works. I am well aware that this blog has little potential to make any money, and I will admit I could use whatever I could earn, but what really intrigues me is the process. Google claims that Adsense will post ads that match the content of the page. Given the content I usually post I want to conduct a little experiment.

The majority of my content thus far has been either CODA or Deaf related, and really they are pretty much the same in terms of what search labels I attach to those posts. So here's the experiment - what kind of deaf related ads will Google decide to run? Will they advertise things that are a welcome part of American Deaf communities? Things that ARE important to Deaf people? Or will it be things like hearing aids or other such products/services that look at deaf as a disability?

The results of this will intrigue me. My cynical side says that without a doubt, there will be ads for hearing aids, cochlear implants, speech therapists, etc, that all make the claim that deaf can be fixed. You know, cause it's something (please add sarcastic tone here) that needs fixing. However, there is the marginally slim portion of me (more like infinitesimal) that has hope that the right thing will be done.

For now, this post will include the labels "hearing aids" and "cochlear implants". The following one will only include labels specific to cultural deafness.

End result, this is an experiment in Audism. Let's see what happens.

R. M.

Deaf Pride and Audism; One CODA's Take

Hello again to all of you out there. A lot less time has passed since my last post, which is a good thing, I think. Anyways, if you can wrap your head around it, this is going to be another post about Deaf people. I know. You're shocked, aren't you, Pepper?

Well, this one relates to a topic that has always been a big one in the Deaf community for as long as I can remember. This may take a roundabout path for me to explain this, and hopefully clearly, so here goes.

I often come to the conclusion that there are Deaf people who do not view themselves as disabled, and do everything they can to not portray themselves that way to the larger, hearing world. In my opinion, Deaf people are not what I consider to be disabled. A hearing loss has no effect on intelligence and therefore there is nothing that cannot be overcome. We can do this, we have the technology. Please do not mistake technology to mean hearing aids and cochlear implants. I mean things like video phones and flashing light doorbells, etc. These Deaf people are proud, hold down jobs, and fully provide for themselves. They show the outer world what they can do.

I also find that there are Deaf people who do not carry that same sense of pride. They willingly collect disability checks. Not for having a heart condition or broken limbs or anything, but for being deaf. This is the way that federal law looks at deaf people. These Deaf people feel no shame in taking the money and doing nothing for it.

There are also those who collect it even though they would rather be independent. The unemployment rate amond Deaf people is exponentially higher than the U.S. average for the entire populace. Audism has a large hand in that. There are also Deaf people who may have real disabilities and cannot work for those reasons, but are listed as disabled by the federal government in relation to their deafness.

I get to have the wonderful experience of seeing different sides of this. My father was almost never without a job. He held only two, in fact. One was at a woodmill for 20+ years. With that money, he was able to provide my family with a house, a decent vehicle, and enough money to be relatively stable. We definitely were not living paycheck to paycheck. Unfortunately, the mill burned to the ground and everyone was laid off. My father was out of work temporarily, and had to go through the humiliating experience of being turned down by other local mills becasue he was deaf and couldn't hear the machines, so how would he know if he was in danger? Ridiculous. He had all that previous experience and no accidents/injuries, no sick time used, and so on and so on. Even more embarrassing to him was having to swallow his pride to turn to a state program that found a job for him. So he became a butcher at a meat plant. The pay was ridiculously low, and we were barely above the poverty line. Never once did he complain about it in front of us. He just kept on working because he had to. We never complained either. It was a commendable sacrifice to make.

On the other hand, there is my mother. Here you have a woman whose experience as a Deaf person was far different. Society and family oppressed her so much that she believes herself to be incapable. She was lucky to have a handful of jobs over a short span of years, but overall those same issues got in the way everytime and she was let go from every position. She didn't want to be 'disabled', but she accepted it as her lot in life just the same. Let it be known that she has collected disability checks for most of her life and does so to get by, even now. To me, the real 'disability' is not her deafness. It's how Audism has affected her over the years, and possibly other issues as well not related to being deaf. In short, she is not willingly taking advantage of the system.

Those Deaf people who do take advantage of the system are my focus for this post. It's not even taking advantage of the system, it's being ok with showing the world that Deaf people are disabled and can't do this or that. For example, have you ever met a deaf person who pan-handled for money in the streets by offering hearing people a business sized card with the manual alphabet on one side, and a sob story on the other asking for a donation? It's a sore subject for Deaf people who are proud of themselves. This behavior of portraying oneself as disabled makes the rest of the community look bad. Especially when many of these Deaf people are doing so when they have everything they need, and are just doing so to make a few extra bucks. It's bad enough to play the welfare/disability system of the federal government, but at least i can see the logic for many of those Deaf people who make such a decision. I see it as a misdirected middle finger to the government for considering them disabled. However, begging for money on the streets isn't a middle finger at all. It's a flat-out admission that one believes themselves to be helpless. It hurts Deaf people for this to occur, and those who are proud generally stand firmly against it.

What's worse is that there are Deaf people who do this without any financial need at all. They just want some extra money. They have their own homes, jobs, vehicles, etc. If there are outstanding circumstances that force a person to need a few extra bucks, does it have to come to panhandling? You can't find a more affordable car? Perhaps sell your house and rent? Lower your monthly bills through credit counseling services? These are all things the rest of us do. There are so many other options out there.

There are those who believe that pride is a sin. Well, I'm not a religious person, and I believe that pride among Deaf people is necessary in the fight against Audism. If you have no pride, you tell your oppressors that they've won. It's unacceptable for that reason alone. Don't let Audism win.

I did not write this to offend Deaf people, though I know that some who read this probably will be. My concern is that some Deaf people make the struggle for the rest of the Deaf community harder than it has to be. Pride is not always bad. Sometimes you just have to show it.

Until next time,

R. M.

One CODAs Opinion on Audism and Deaf Civil Rights

Hello everyone, it's been a long time since I have posted, and I apologize. As for updates, here it goes... the book is coming along a little bit slower in the last couple of weeks, but has not stalled out, I have a feeling things will pick up when I get my 3 week vacation from work. Most of that time I will be at camp, and I always focus better there. As for the GEBAs, I have completed all of my readings (8 ebooks in total), scored them, and sent them to the people at the GEBAs. They say the winners will be offically annoucned and awarded on August 18, in Santa Barbara, CA. Being the poor independent author that I am I will not be able to attend. But within days of that announcement, I will be posting 1 ebook review per week of those from the GEBAs. I am currently reading other ebooks which will be reviewed here upon my completing them.

Now that updates are out of the way, something happened this morning that really got me thinking. Can you guess what this could possibly be about? If you read my blog on a regular basis, I'm confident you have an idea.

This morning I learned a little bit about CEASD, the Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf. They have recently held a conference to discuss something they call "IDEA - Child First". IDEA is the acronym for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (Can you see where I'm going already?) Here's is what their mission is with this endeavor;
    
"What: Child First is a national campaign to ensure that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) appropriately addresses the language, communication, and educational needs of deaf and hard of hearing children.
Who: Child First was developed and is being driven by national organizations that advocate for the educational rights of deaf and hard of hearing children.
Why: At the time IDEA (then the Education for All Handicapped Children Act) was passed in 1975, many children with disabilities were precluded from going to school, either by law or because schools were not equipped to teach them. IDEA changed that by requiring states, local school districts, and schools to provide them with an individualized education. The main principles include:

• Individualized Education Program (IEP): A program tailored to the child that supports the child's progress in the general education curriculum. For deaf and hard of hearing children this includes consideration of language and communication.
• Evaluation: A child's IEP is based on information gathered through an appropriate evaluation. The evaluation must be performed by qualified personnel.
• Least Restrictive Environment (LRE): To the maximum extent appropriate students with disabilities are educated with students who are not disabled.
• Procedural Safeguards: The student and his parents have certain rights that are protected by law, such as the right to be involved in developing the IEP and the right to be part of the team that decides placement.

In order to meet deaf and hard of hearing students' educational needs, programs must first address their language and communication needs. However, today implementation of IDEA pays little attention to this issue. Instead, IDEA implementation often focuses on the location where the child is being educated, rather than the supports and services available at that location to meet the needs of the child. Child First is attempting to shift the focus of IDEA back to the individual needs of the child. It is attempting to ensure that deaf and hard of hearing children's IEPs and educational placement facilitate full language and communication development, which will lead to greater educational success.
It is time to ensure that deaf and hard of hearing students across the United States experience the same kind of access to language development, social interaction, and academic opportunities experienced by their hearing peers."

This comes directly from their website, http://www.ceasd.org/idea/ . After reading it, I could not agree more. The main idea of this is simple. According to IDEA, deaf children are disabled, and therefore must have an IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) while enrolled in school. "Disabled" is a very tricky label to put upon a deaf child or deaf/Deaf people in general. Deaf people are not less intelligent than the rest of us, yet because of Audism, many people (including those with the power to make decisions) see them as just that, intellectually disabled. Talk about a good idea gone wrong for at least one group of individuals. This may be great for children who are in fact intellectually handicapped, as they are the population who do need such support. Do deaf children need this in the same way?

This is why I am happy to see an organization try to address this with the powers that be at the governmental level to try and bring about change. I just have one more question.... Is this the right place to start?

I ask this because I am looking at the overall problem of Audism in America. Audism typically starts affecting deaf children from birth. When diagnosed by a doctor, all sorts of referalls are made to medical professionals, like audiologists and cochlear implant specialists/surgeons, speech therapists, etc. Where are the referalls to successful Deaf adults who use ASL as their primary language, are successful people, so they may inform parents about the benefits of a deaf child having a Deaf identity, that said deaf child has a right to a langauge that is naturally and completely accessible from birth without the use or need of hearing technologies intended to promote development of spoken language (which, by the way, require endless hours of speech/audiological therapy in order to use at all, and still have the majority of deaf children fail to be successful at)? All that it would require is the parent/s and family to learn ASL. To me, that's a lot less time and stress invested in order to give a deaf child a better chance at being independently successful and well rounded. The problem is that acts of Audism committed by these medical professionals (not cultural professionals) often keep that information away from parents of deaf children. That is the root of the problem with Audism.

What CEASD is doing is also fighting Audism, but in my opinion, a "further down the branched out chain" of issues relating to deaf children. It seems as though that are taking issue with a symptom of the root problem, and not the root problem itself. Please don;t get me wrong. It's still a very positive venture and has merit. But couldn't their time be better spent to change the culture of Audism in America at its' very root? If change was made there, wouldnt it be far easier to affect change where they are focused now? My gut tells me yes.

Invited and attending that conference were the following groups: CEASD, NAD (National Association of the Deaf), DWU (Deaf Women United), NBDA (National Black Deaf Advocates), NADC (National Deaf Coalition), National Organization for Hispanic Individuals, DBC (Deaf Bilingual Coalition), Deafhood, DSC (Deaf Senior Citizens), ASDC (a parent group). I am not familiar with the reputaion for all of these groups, but reading that list seems pretty impressive. What I do know is that many members of the Deaf community are not happy with the NAD for what they perceive to be a lack of ambition to advocating for Deaf people, and many are also critical of the NAD's stance against gay marriage (seems to me that the NAD is not considering advocacy for ALL Deaf people, and thats a shame). From personal experience, I have found the DBC to be unresponsive to requests for help and advice in deaf educational needs, for whatever reason that may be.

Even more striking to me was that there was no mention of AFA (Audism Free America). As far as i can tell, that is an organization who is trying to fight Audsim at its root more often than not. Why were they not attending? Were they even invited? To me, it seems as though more organizations and people need to stand up and fight Audism at it's root. Instead of working within IDEA laws to create change, we need to change the laws, period. This was a long read to get back to the difference between physical disabilities and intellectual ones, but here we are. IDEA is proof that the government makes no distinction between the two. That is Audist in nature. That is at the root of the problem, as it effects everything down the road in deaf education. Why can't people and organizations start there? Did everyone give up, or are they all lost? If those who stand up and fight Audism would start there and with the medical profession (ie, the roots of the problem), we would have a better chance to affect change. Affecting change at the root of the problem would force the government to make distinctions, and therefore create a different perception of Deaf people in American society. It would happen overnight, but eventually the perception would shift. Right now, all we ever seem to do is butt heads and no one without the power is ever really heard because we don't go after the root of the problem.

As far as I'm concerned, this really comes down to a deaf child's civil rights. Deaf students were successful in 1988 with the "Deaf President Now" protests at Gallaudet University. Perhaps its time to raise the bar nationwide, and set an example for the world. Let's stop fighting for scraps from the table and instead fight for a seat at the table with everyone else. It's my opinion, and I hope more people feel the same way deep down inside.

R. M.

An Update and a Call for Written ASL

It's been some time since I posted last. Life can keep you busy at times, and no one is immune. However, I did want to acknowledge that there will be very few book reviews until sometime in August, when the Global E-Book award winners are announced. Most, if not all, of my reading over the last few months have been ebook submissions on which I am judging. I am currently judging in the categories of poetry, short stories, horror fiction, and fantasy (set before the 1940's). I have read 8 submissions so far and working on the ninth. In a few more days any further entries will have been submitted, so who knows how many more there may be for me to read. The awards people have asked that no jusge posts a review of any kind until the award winners are announced. It's something I agree with because it could have an influence on other judges and therefore effect outcomes unfairly. Suffice to say that when August comes, there will be a plethora of reviews for me to post.

As far as my next book is concerned, it is coming along well. I have completed writing about one third of it and am plugging away. I think when the writing itself is done, it will be the editing that shall be the most painstaking and agonizingly long part of the process. I still hope to have it ready by sometime in the fall, and if not, by years end.

That's it for updates. One thing I have been thinking about lately is signed languages across the world, whether it's ASL, LSF, BSL, MSL, or any other signed language in the world. Historically, none of them have ever had a written form of the language. My personal opinion on the reason for why is this; they never had an opportunity to get to an academic level. As for today, many signed languages are being used at academic levels, but because of its larger society's use of spoken langauge, the theory is that if a deaf person does not learn to communicate and get by in a hearing world, their chances for success are dismal. Somehow in all of this, Deaf cultures across the world haven't really developed any system of writing based on their signed languages. I find this to be highly detrimental in helping deaf children to learn to read and write. They don't even have one of their own.

I have seen one developed based on ASL, but it has never really caught on within the Deaf community. I'm not entirely sure of the reasons for this, but I do believe one thing. Without an arbitrary system for reading and writing in ASL, deaf children in bilingual education are still at a disadvantage in learning their second language of written English. If ASL had a written format, then deaf children could learn it as we learn to read and write English. I think it's fair to say that if a child can read in one language, learning to read in another becomes exponentially easier to do. I could list a million examples of this to back it up, but I want to keep this relatively short.

I really want to stress how important it is for ASL to have a written form. Deaf people could argue that written ASL would be boring, especially in the technological age we are in right now. Ok, fine. But guess what? So are written versions of spoken languages. Is it any wonder why movies are so much more popular than books? Written language can still be beautiful however, and it seems to me that if ASL had a written version, more educators, doctors, and people in general would take American Sign Language more seriously. It would do much to further its legitimacy in the eyes of those who commit acts of Audism based on their notions of superiority. Why shouldn't Deaf people level the playing field a bit more? If American deaf children could read and write in their own language, and that led to improved literacy in English, I would think this would be a huge win-win for Deaf people, culture, and their community. I'm not speaking for Deaf people here, this is just my observation.

Should anyone wish to question this or have any opinion whatsoever about it, the comment box is open.

R. M.

A Look at a CODAs Deaf Family

In my last post I talked about "doors being closed" when a CODA loses a Deaf parent or both of them. When I lost my father his door had closed, but thankfully I had opened others before his passing. It was a gift that my parents had given me as a child and I realized I can keep all through life. It’s the ability to see the doors I can open. It keeps me in a Deaf family, and "family", whether it's your real kin, or the closest of friends that feel like kin, it means your home. Wherever home is, your family is there.

My family is ELF, the many Deaf people whom I love dearly, and my hearing family and friends. They probably rank in that order, too. Any time I am with any of these people, I feel like I am home. I find I cannot stay away from Deaf people for too long, or I start to get homesick. A big part of me belongs there, and sometimes being between the hearing and Deaf worlds can be a tricky balancing act.

My parents are the only Deaf people in my biological family. Everyone else in that family is hearing from my siblings to my grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, you name it. I do love them, but being around them doesn’t give me that same feeling of being home as it does being around other Deaf people. Often times I have wondered how great it would have been to have had an entirely Deaf biological family.

I bring this up because a Deaf man I know is going through what is likely to be the last stages of his life. He is a man that would be around my grandfathers' ages, and he may be one of the kindest people I have ever met. We met through our jobs and even though we don’t see each other perhaps more than a couple of times a month, I feel a bond to him.

Every time we come across each other and have a conversation, we almost always talk about our families and update each other. It's kind of a Deaf culture thing to do, and like many Deaf people do with each other, the conversations can go on, which is never a bad thing. It's been like this with the two of us, too. When my father passed away, I really began to look at this man as that kind of a father figure. He always made that time to talk to me and ask me how I've been doing, and he's always kept me updated on his family. In truth, he feels like what I would have wanted in a grandfather.

My actual grandfathers were not the most horrible people in the world by any stretch, but when I saw them struggle to communicate with my parents because they never took the time to learn sign language of any kind, it really bothers me deep down inside. Despite my knowledge of how Audism kept them from choosing to do the most sensible thing, part of me is still upset with their choice to not learn. It's a hot button for me, I suppose, and seeing deaf children with hearing parents who are doing the same thing always reminds me of it. It makes me realize how much influence Audism has and how few of us really know the truth of it. Either way, though, they were my grandfathers and I loved them both. But they were not Deaf.

The things I loved about my real grandfathers are things I love about my dying Deaf friend. He treats me like family and I love him for it. So in that sense I have to say he is the grandfather that I always wanted. I'm not upset that he isn’t, or that I had the grandfathers that I had instead of him. In truth, I am very thankful to have known this man because when I'm around him I feel at home, with my Deaf family.

I saw him yesterday in the hospital and he was looking ok. He was up for conversation, and we talked about fishing spots in the small town where I grew up. Apparently he had fished around the same places when he went up to visit his son who lived even further north from where I had. Small world, right? Just adds to that family feel, I guess. I don’t know if I will get to see him again before he leaves this world, but I believe our last conversation is just what it should have been, like nothing had changed. Here's to you, my friend. May whatever lies ahead for you be everything you ever wanted in this life that you did not get. You are more than deserving of it.

With much CODA love,

R. M.