Blind Access Journal

Arcadia commercial real estate professional Lawrence A. Lippincott saves lives through his frequent donation of blood platelets.

The platelets, which are a part of the blood that enables clotting after a cut, scrape or other injury, are most often needed by cancer patients.

“There’s definitely a shortage of platelets because it takes about two to two and a half hours to donate them each week,” Lippincott said. “I think most people who do this donate whole blood, which only takes about 15 minutes.”

Lippincott donates platelets about once per week at United Blood Services’ Commerce Center location at 1405 N. Hayden in Scottsdale.

He said donating blood is a comfortable and easy way to give back to the community.

“They make you as comfortable as possible. You get a snack and beverages afterwards. You can read, listen to music or watch TV,” Lippincott said. “The room has to be kept cool because of the blood products, so they put heating pads on your back and a blanket over you.”

He said blood donation is even more convenient for him because of the slow commercial real estate industry in the valley.

“You’re giving blood so it’s not a form of economic hardship on a family or a person,” Lippincott said. “It’s not like giving aid to Afghanistan where sometimes it ends up stuck on the dock, they’ve bought the wrong products and it goes to waste because there’s a lot of bureaucracy. But you know this blood goes to a good cause. We’re saving lives.”

Lippincott said he has been donating blood on a volunteer basis for over 20 years.

“I had just moved to California and gotten a job as a shopping center manager,” he said. “I just saw one of those blood mobiles and decided to donate. I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Scottsdale real estate professional Branden Lombardi said he relied on donated blood during his three-year battle against bone cancer, which was diagnosed at age 17.

“You have to be very conscious of your blood counts while going through treatments because the idea behind chemotherapy is to target all rapidly dividing cells in order to kill the cancer,” Lombardi said. “It also kills the white blood cells that help you fight infection, the red blood cells that deliver oxygen throughout your body and the platelets which help prevent blood from flowing when you cut or scrape yourself or brush your teeth too hard.”

He said he received frequent transfusions of red blood cells and platelets after each of his chemotherapy treatments.

Lombardi said a stem cell transplant put his cancer into remission.

“They gave me ultra-high doses of chemotherapy to wipe out all the cancer,” Lombardi said. “When I was done with the chemotherapy, they introduced the stem cells into my body with the idea of building me back up.”

“After the transplant, I received daily transfusions of red blood cells and platelets to help me recover faster,” he said.

At age 29, Lombardi said he appreciates the generosity of blood donors like Lippincott.

“I’m not speaking hypothetically when I say blood donors helped save my life,” he said. “In October I will have been nine years post-transplant, there have been no reoccurrences of cancer, and I am as happy and healthy as anyone can be.”

Sue Thew, media and public relations specialist with United Blood Services, said the demand for blood in the valley always outstrips supply, especially for platelets.

“We fill the needs of 54 hospitals in this state and it takes about 700 blood donors each day to do that,” she said.

Thew said United Blood Services always finds a way to meet the needs of the community.

“Arizona is quickly becoming the epicenter for cancer research and modern medical treatments,” Thew said. “The increased demand in platelet transfusions for those patients is currently being met with the assistance of out-of-state resources. To accommodate this surge, we are expanding facilities for platelet donations and are actively looking for more platelet donors.”

She said it’s a race against time.

“Platelets have a shelf life of five days,” Thew said. “The first 24 to 36 hours are spent testing and preparing the platelets, so we don’t have much time to get those donations to the people who need them most.”

Thew said platelets are just one of several possible ways to donate blood.

“You can also give red blood cells, plasma or whole blood, with whole blood taking as few as 15 minutes to donate,” said Thew. “The component of your blood you would be donating depends on your blood type and our most pressing needs.”

Thew said she recommends anyone interested in donating blood to call United Blood Services at 877-448-4483 or visit the organization’s website at unitedbloodservices.org.

“I’m happy to be giving something that I know is going 100 percent to the end user,” Lippincott said. “I think the important thing is that it’s not about me. It’s about getting the word out that there is a shortage in the community and there’s always a need. This is something people can do to give when money is tight.”

This story, which I originally wrote for my news writing class, was just published on a local news website.

The new Maricopa County Court Tower will be designed to safeguard the rights of crime victims.

The 16-story tower located at the corner of First Avenue and Madison Street in downtown Phoenix is slated for a Feb. 2012 opening.

Criminal court administrator Bob James said separation of defendants and victims is a key design feature of the new building.

“We have provided spaces that are private for the use of victims,” James said. “If a person is uncomfortable with being in the courtroom, they can be in
an adjacent victims’ room where they can watch all the proceedings.”

He said this separation is important in areas people might not think about.

“Victims told us that sometimes they feel apprehensive when they have to use the bathroom,” James said. “The nearest restroom may be where the defendant
or his or her family goes.”

He said the victims’ rooms address this concern by providing separate restroom facilities.

James said every effort has been taken to maintain separation when victims must appear in open court.

“If the prosecutors decide the victim needs to testify, they would actually need to come into the courtroom,” James said. “But, even then, we’ve created
an entrance separate from the gallery or the one used by defendants.”

James said security is critical in a courthouse that will also hold defendants whose cases are coming up for trial.

“One of the lower levels will be a holding facility for the Sharif’s department,” James said. “They will have the holding capacity for up to 1,400 defendants.
so the only time the traffic flow of the in-custody defendants meets with the judges, staff and the public is in the courtroom itself.”

Special Court Counsel Jessica Funkhouser said the need for separation of defendants from victims goes beyond comfort and safety.

“Victims are regularly cautioned by judges and prosecutors to avoid showing their emotions in the courtroom so as not to cause a mistrial,” Funkhouser said.
“They can retreat to the victims’ room and watch the trial on a video monitor without having to worry about the jury or anyone else in the courtroom seeing
them.”

Criminal defense attorney Michael V. Black said he has reservations about the preferential treatment of crime victims in the courthouse.

“There’s a whole lot of types of victims and they’re just another witness,” Black said. “I don’t see why they should be given any more consideration than
an ordinary witness in a particular case. If they treated everyone the same, that would be fine with me.”

He said he would be concerned if it turns out a courthouse designed to protect victims interfered with a defendant’s constitutional right to face their
accuser.

“The Supreme Court said the victim has to be there (in court) and they have to testify in front of the defendant and have to be cross-examined in front
of them, so they can’t do anything to interfere with that,” Black said. “If the courtroom impedes on that, it will not pass constitutional muster.”

Funkhouser said separating defendants and their families from victims and their families benefits everyone.

“You’ve seen videos where fights break out in courtrooms where the families of defendants and victims jump over the rails and attack each other,” she said.
“The whole idea is that a courthouse that’s safe for victims is going to be safer for everybody.”

Funkhouser said the design of the new court tower has been carried out in direct compliance with Arizona’s constitution and legislation addressing the need
to minimize contact between defendants and victims.

“I don’t know of any other court buildings in the United States that have gone to this extent,” Funkhouser said. “Arizona is the first state to have a victims’
bill of rights amendment. So I think this courthouse is the most innovative in terms of addressing victims’ needs and their rights.”

Guest article contributed by Darrell Shandrow and Jordan Moon, Students
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Shownotes

Enjoy this podcast of the Wednesday evening gathering meeting of the 2010 National Federation of the Blind Washington Seminar, where you may hear me make a fool of myself by trying to badly sing along to the old Federation songs I once knew years ago.

Download and Listen

Shownotes

Listen to the Monday evening Great Gathering In meeting of the 2010 National Federation of the Blind Washington Seminar. In addition to the legislative items, many other updates of interest to Federationists specifically and the blind community in general were announced, including a short Blio Reader demo.

Download and Listen

WASHINGTON – Hundreds of advocates met Monday evening near Capitol Hill to urge the passage of legislation designed to ensure the safety of pedestrians around quiet cars, increase the accessibility of technology for blind people and put blind Social Security recipients back to work.

The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act would begin a two-year study to determine the most effective way to ensure the safety of blind and other pedestrians around electric and hybrid vehicles. The results of the study would be used to mandate a minimum level of sound quiet cars would be required to make along with any other necessary vehicle safety standards.

Advocates with the National Federation of the Blind contend the need for this law goes far beyond the blind population to include all pedestrians.

“The general public doesn’t realize that even when they’re not actively doing it, they use the sound of traffic all the time like the blind,” said Chris Danielsen, director of public relations for the National Federation of the Blind. “People are told they shouldn’t jog or walk with their headphones turned up loud because they can’t hear sounds in the environment that may be a danger.”

The federation’s leaders said they’re already making headway on this legislation. The House bill, H.R. 734, has 174 co-sponsors while the Senate bill, S. 841, has 19. Blind people will be spending the next three days working to persuade their representatives and senators to sign on and vote for a bill they say will ensure their continued freedom of safe travel.

The federation’s advocates and other interested members of the blind community are also pressing for enactment of a Technology Bill of Rights for the Blind. The proposed legislation would require that appliances, consumer electronics, kiosks and office technology be made accessible to everyone regardless of eye sight.

“Joe Shaw owns a company. He goes over to his own FAX machine, but he can’t operate it. It’s not accessible. When I go to the gymn, I can run but I can’t turn on the machines,” said John Paré, director of governmental affairs for the National Federation of the Blind. “This is wrong. This needs to be against the law and we can make it against the law this week.”

In a manner similar to the pedestrian safety legislation, a study would be conducted to determine the minimum accessibility standards companies would be required to meet. At the conclusion of the study, regulations would be enacted to enforce the new standards.

The proposed legislation, H.R. 4533, has 44 co-sponsors and advocates said they are working over the next three days to significantly increase that number.

Finally, the federation is asking Congress to pass the Blind Person’s Return to Work Act into law, which would provide incentives for blind people receiving Social Security Disability Insurance to return to work.

The legislation, H.R. 886, is designed to gradually reduce benefits as a blind person’s earnings increase, determine ongoing eligibility based on annual rather than monthly earnings and simplify the way blind recipients can account for work expenses related to their disability.

Some Cox Communications customers throughout Arizona woke up Friday morning to find themselves disconnected from their digital lives. Technical support calls were greeted by a recorded message that stated: “We are currently experiencing outages affecting high speed Internet and digital telephone state-wide. Our engineers are working to resolve this issue. There is no estimated time of repair.”

Tempe resident Lauren Peikoff, an Arizona State University journalism student, wanted to go online before leaving for class.

“I needed to check to see if I had any assignments posted,” said Peikoff. “I wanted to find out if there was anything else I needed to do. What if my instructor said class was canceled?”

She was also concerned about an assignment in her online class due Friday evening.

“I was thinking ahead. OK. I am going to have to go to the library to submit my homework,” Peikoff said.

She was relieved to discover she could complete the assignment at home after service was restored sometime between 1:30 and 2 p.m.

Tempe resident Corey Nava also experienced the outage.

“I was trying to check my e-mail at the time and I couldn’t even get to it. It was just a pain, really,” Nava said. “I was actually looking for a car online, too, so, it kind of put a damper on that.”

Cox representatives said the service interruption was caused by a software problem.

“It disrupted service to around 10 percent of our customers,” said Michael Dunne, Director of Media Relations, Cox Communications, Southern Arizona. “It wasn’t geographically located. It was kind of all over. Our techs immediately started working the issue.”

Cox Media Relations Director Andrea Katsenes prefers not to classify the incident as an outage. “The interruption was intermittent,” she said.

“We’ve been talking to our customers on a case-by-case basis,” Katsenes said, declining to provide details on any steps Cox might take to compensate customers.

Nava said he won’t ask Cox for any credit to his account. “I probably won’t even follow up on it. It was an inconvenience and it’s not the first time it happened.”

Seems there’s virtually no connectivity available while riding the Metro subway. Verizon is the only cellular carrier with cell towers in the subway, so those of us who rely on alternate carriers like AT&T are just out of luck while underground. In addition, the Metro system does not offer Wi-Fi, so there’s no Internet access. Since all mobile cell and Internet communications involve the good old air waves, I say there’s virtual radio silence while riding the D.C. area subway. Oh, well, maybe there are actually times when it’s good to disconnect and get away from it all…

Early in the morning of Sunday, August 9, I departed Phoenix for Washington D.C. on a week-long trip visiting my friend Milica (Mimi).

Flying the Relatively Friendly Skies

I left home at 4:30 AM for a 6:00 flight to New York City. Delta Airlines charges $15 for the first checked bag, which is unfortunately rather typical of today’s market. The security check-in process was no worse than the usual hassle. Everyone involved was very helpful. I got a window seat with noone sitting immediately to my left. Audrey, one of the flight attendants, was especially accommodating. I enjoyed good conversation with an American Airlines pilot completing the last leg of his flight home to New York from Thailand, slept intermittently and read for an hour or so. I’m reading There’s No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark.

The three-hour layover at New York’s JFK airport was certainly not the most exciting portion of the day’s travels. The terminal had no free Wi-Fi, and I could not get my MSI Wind netbook to synchronize with my Motorola Q9H phone, so accessing the Internet was completely out of the question. I spent over an hour troubleshooting the problem, all to no avail. Finally, I gave up and finished some additional reading.

Finally, the flight from New York to Reagan National was pretty bad, featuring a crowded plane, isle seat, two big guys sitting in the middle and window seats next to me and a rough takeoff capped by a rougher landing. Bernadette, one of the flight attendants, was very accommodating, doing her best to smooth some of the roughest edges.
Though the flight got off the ground late due to heavy traffic and a stalled tractor used to push the plane from the gate, we made up most of the time in the air and I was on the ground by 7:05.

Reunion and End of the Day’s Journey

Milica met me at the baggage claim section of the airport. As expected, it was very nice to see her again. As we walked outside, I was stunned by the hot, humid weather conditions. Reading a weather forecast is nothing like actually experiencing the weather firsthand. I had forgotten exactly how it felt to be outside in 90 plus degree heat with humidity percentages in the double digits. We rode the Metro subway, ate dinner at a nice little Chinese restaurant called Mr. Chang’s (where all the staff were Chinese who spoke minimal English) and connected with Mimi’s friends where I would be staying.

First Full Day

Monday’s activities began with breakfast followed by a tour of the Newseum, a museum covering the past five centuries of journalism. Our tour guide, Ryan, did a great job, making this an enjoyable, mostly accessible experience. While there were many disappointing exhibits behind cases and walls we could not touch, we were able to experience several exhibits, including touching a piece of the Berlin Wall, a guard tower from the wall, a piece of a damaged wall from the Pentagon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the journalist’s memorial wall and several more. We were even able to tour George Stephanopoulos’ broadcast studio!

In the evening, we went to the M&S Grill to hang out with Jamal Mazrui, Mikah Pyyhkala, Mark, Anne, Sam, Sarah and many others from the DC Night Out gang, a group of blind people who live in the Washington D.C. area and meet on a regular basis. Mimi and I had a great time with this wonderful group of folks! We’re even hoping to arrange a going-away party for Saturday night!

I know I’ve barely touched the surface, but I hope all of you have at least gotten a flavor of what I’ve been up to here in Washington D.C. Stay tuned for more as the week speeds along. If you’re in the D.C. area and you would like to arrange a meeting with us, please e-mail editor@blindaccessjournal.com or dial my cell phone at 480-652-3813.

Wednesday’s article generated responses from Independent Living Aids and the members of the connected online blind community.

ILA’s account manager, Frank Boyden, posted a public comment Thursday morning. “ILA appreciates the feedback. We are always trying to improve and be accessible to our customer base. If you have a question or your not sure about something please ask, we always try to go the extra length and accommodate. Our customer service team is well trained and has been with ILA for a long time as many of our customers know. Although Marryann could have phrased her words differently it sounds to me like she was trying to help. If you have suggestions on how we can improve please feel free to send me an email,” Boyden said.

Boyden removed his comment three hours later despite its lack of controversy. “It was pulled because he was not authorized to give you any answer,” said office manager Barbara Chernosky. “I don’t want somebody posting anything good or bad if they’re not authorized.”

The removal of Boyden’s public comment brought on ethics concerns. Consulting members of the blind community, everyone we asked seemed to be in favor of reposting it for all to see. ” Wow I can’t believe they deleted their own comment,” said an anonymous source.

Chernosky said in a Friday telephone conversation that the Franklin English and Spanish Talking Translator is no longer sold by ILA and that more effort will be expended to identify products that may not be accessible to all customers. “We’re going through every product with a fine tooth comb to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Chernosky. “I’m not saying we don’t make mistakes, but we’re correcting them immediately.”

Chernosky further indicated that the company’s representatives are specifically trained to imagine what it would be like to be blind or visually impaired so they will accommodate ILA’s customers and treat them with respect. She also pointed out that Stephen Guerra, a totally blind person and active member of the connected online blind community, heads the company’s technical support team. “Technical support is available all day to help,” Chernosky said.

The company is proud of its web site. “We’re adding sound to our watches and our other speaking products,” said Chernosky. “We’re one of the few companies in the nation with NFB web accessibility certification.”

Product documentation is another area where Chernosky said the company is improving. “Many of our products have instructions that are posted on the web site,” Chernosky said, indicating that Guerra and his team are spearheading this effort.

We thank ILA representatives for their willingness to do the right thing. Upon receipt of the inaccessible product, Chernosky said ILA will refund not only the purchase price but also the shipping costs to Karen, so this situation has a positive ending for us. We can take an important lesson from this story. Even when ordering from a company selling products for the blind and visually impaired, carefully read the product’s description and/or ask a customer service representative lots of good questions to make sure the product will meet the needs of the person who will be receiving it.

I’ll be doing some more targeted journalism on this issue in the near future, so all of you may consider this article to be a rant. ILA continues to have some real problems with selling inaccessible products with inaccessible documentation to blind people, then trying to deliver customer service that’s inappropriate for blind customers.

On Monday, June 8, I received a couple of anniversary gifts from Karen. They were purchased from ILA. One was a Franklin English and Spanish Talking Translator. Karen thought this might help me learn and practice Spanish. There were a number of problems with this gift that, in my opinion, shouldn’t have existed when ordering from a business in the disabilities field. First, it was packaged in one of those hard plastic containers that’s almost impossible to open. Second, the product was accompanied only by a small print booklet. Its documentation was not supplied in any accessible alternative format. Third, and worst of all, the product itself was completely inaccessible for a blind person! Karen’s boss helped her figure out how to use the product. There’s no feedback as you press its keys. Only after typing a word can you press another key to hear it translated in Spanish. That’s the only talking this product does; everything else is displayed on a small LCD.

This morning, I contacted ILA’s customer service department and got Maryann on the phone. I mentioned the three issues above, but she wasn’t at all interested in hearing what I had to say. She was willing to process an RMA to return the product. After giving me the RMA number, she reminded me to fill out the form included in the box. After telling her I was blind, she asked me if I could have a sighted person assist. Frustrated at this point, I said no and indicated that I felt it was inappropriate for her to ask given the field in which ILA does business. I reminded her that blind people are not able to see and, thus, we are not able to directly read or write print without personal or technological assistance. Of course, we can do so easily when information and technology is delivered in a way that’s accessible to us. Apparently, ILA does not have an accessible copy of the RMA form on hand. She gave me the RMA number and ILA’s mailing address without requiring me to complete the form. Fortunately, I am going to be able to return the inaccessible product, but we’re going to get stuck with the shipping cost! Yeah, that’s right. It’s “company policy…”

I am very disappointed with ILA. Their people continue to sell inaccessible products or products without appropriate documentation to blind customers. At this point, I would like to see ILA do the following things to improve the situation:

• Review all products being offered to ensure they are appropriate for ILA’s customer base.
• When a product is not fully accessible, provide relevant information in the printed catalog and on the web site.
• Train everyone answering the phone on how to communicate with customers in such a way so that they are fully aware of which products are accessible to which types of users. For instance, tell the customer if a product requires some sight.
• Ensure that appropriate documentation is supplied in an accessible format for each product sold.

Independent Living Aids, being a company that does business in the blindness field and sells to the blind community and those who care about us, really should know better! The company should be a leader! We really shouldn’t need to have this unfortunate discussion in the connected online blind community about inaccessibility within the companies that do business with us. Come on, ILA and other offending companies, get with the program already!