Preposterous! AG Bell’s Announcement
Amy Cohen Efron shares her thoughts after reading Alexander Graham Bell Association’s (AG Bell) press release announcing the appointment of new Executive Director.
Find out who is the new executive director… and watch for the ENDING of the videoclip!
YouTube:
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Preposterous
adjective
1. So senseless as to be laughable: absurd, foolish, harebrained, idiotic, imbecilic, insane, lunatic, mad, moronic, nonsensical, silly, softheaded, tomfool, unearthly, zany. Informal cockeyed, crazy, loony, loopy. Slang balmy2, dippy, dopey, jerky, sappy, wacky. See ability/inability, knowledge/ignorance.
2. Beyond all reason: obscene, outrageous, ridiculous, shocking, unconscionable, unreasonable. Idioms: out of bounds, out of sight. See usual/unusual.
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To learn bit more about The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals:
To learn a bit more about Alexander T. Graham:
Alexandria, Va., Aug. 15, 2007 – The Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals today announced the resignation of its executive director, Alexander T. Graham.
Martha Matteo, Ph.D., president of SCIP Board of Directors, says Graham is leaving SCIP to become the executive director of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (AG Bell). Based in Washington, D.C., AG Bell is dedicated to supporting children and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing that use spoken language and hearing technology to communicate in mainstream society.
According to Graham, the coincidence of his new organization’s name is just that – an interesting coincidence. “I’m the fourth Alexander T. Graham in my family,†he says. “What is not a coincidence is that the mission of AG Bell is one that I strongly believe in—growing up in a household with a hearing-impaired parent, I have deep respect and empathy for those with hearing health issues.â€
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Amy Cohen Efron here:
INTERESTING COINCIDENCE!
Alexander Graham Bell’s mother is deaf, and NOW, Alexander T. Graham has a ‘hearing-impaired’ parent?
dooDooodooo the Twilight Zone theme is playing… doooDooodooodo
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August 20th, 2007 at 3:04 am
“…hearing health issues?” Wait… I think he made a grammatical incorrect sentence… It should read as,
“… I have deep respect and empathy for those who are hearing health issues.” It’s WHO ARE, not WITH! Duuuhhhh! There you go, fellas!! Merely a grammatical error on his part…
Oh, how I wish it really were a grammatical error. Ah well, it’s definitely an error, that’s for sure.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:27 am
What Carrie said.
Too funny.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:51 am
Did he just say he grew up in a household with a ‘hearing impaired’ parent? Was that his way of not using a possessive pronoun - “my mom/dad is hearing impaired?” Is he believable?
How people write…trying to disassociate themselves somehow and not possessing his own parent 100%. Doesn’t this reflect his attitude already? Doesn’t seem collaborative, yet he’s still associating himself into a ‘hearing impaired’ organization somehow.
Whatever!
August 20th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Oh my goodness! This is AG Bell’s SECOND greatest irony!
August 20th, 2007 at 6:12 am
Just out of curiosity: is the “hearing impaired” parent in his family simply one with age-related hearing loss? If so, that is trivializing the entire Deaf population.
Also, I wonder if there is some kinship between Alexander T. Graham and the Alexander Graham Bell family? Even if it is not by blood, but by business association, it shows the cronyism that so often infects such associations.
August 20th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Dianrez,
Good question! One of us need to contact Alexander T. about his ‘hearing impaired’ parent, if that comes with age-related hearing loss OR congential hearing loss.
Information is power!
Kinship between Graham and Bell families? I have no way of knowing.
I can certainly say that it is rather very insensitive of AG Bell Association to hire a person who shared a similar namesake, plus having an ‘hearing impaired parent’ knowing the history of a founder and ongoing issues between AGB and the Deaf Community.
Alexander T. Graham thinks it is not a coincidence to have a hearing impaired parent, and that is obvious to me that he is not familiar with the history of the founder and his relationship with the Deaf Community.
Lastly, nowhere in AG Bell Association website explaining about Alexander T. Graham’s background, especially with his growing up in household with a “hearing impaired” parent. The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals website did mention that.
That is way too suspicious for AG Bell Association to omit this information on its announcement or elsewhere on their website.
Lastly, in all, that experience itself is bit too coincidental and bordering to a deja vu experience for the Deaf Community.
Amy Cohen Efron
August 20th, 2007 at 7:07 am
258! Keep up, Amy!
August 20th, 2007 at 7:10 am
How bizarre!
The name probably is just a coincidence. Graham is a common enough surname. But, still, it is strange.
“Hearing health”? what does that even mean??
August 20th, 2007 at 7:16 am
I wonder if they voted for him just because of his name? The probably think its cool with both the same name.
I was like DUHHHHH about “Hearing Health Issue” OMG!!! He is NOT intellegent….Heaing related to health????? NOT!
August 20th, 2007 at 7:42 am
B.A.D.,
I don’t think AG Bell’s Board voted for him just because of his name. I think they are very interested about his experience as a director of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. We need to look closely at this website, and most especially, with the competitive intelligence, also called as CI. It is a very ambitious way of handling business.
Check out the FAQ page of SCIP - and you will be interested…
http://www.scip.org/2_faq.php
August 20th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Oh lawdy! What if his wife is deafie, too? Is she? His statement sounds so patronizing! He is NOT fit to run the organization nor he is not being sensitive… oh geez! what does he mean by hearing health? That is sooooo absurd!
Is God sleeping on the shift? Why is he churning out monsters like him? Or is it simply a reincarnation of the evil man namely AG Bell?
AGBAD must be desperate to have him due to his so-called resume with SCIP. It is sounding more like CIA.
It does NOT look good! Beware!
August 20th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Amy Cohen Efron,
Why did you put it quicktime version in your blog? Because I can’t see your Vlog, I am disappointed. please, allow me to view your vlog.
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Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I just embedded YouTube video on my blog.
Amy Cohen Efron
August 20th, 2007 at 9:21 am
For what he said in your vlog at the end….it looks like he’s a blooper.
“I have deep respect and empathy for those with hearing health issues.”
oooooooooooh. I am laughing at him…..AG Bell should be embarrassing.
Blooper (noun) means an embarrassing public blunder.
White Ghost
August 20th, 2007 at 9:39 am
There is a darn lot of coincidences. Kinda creepy! lol
August 20th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Thank you a lot. I am very glad that I enjoy watching your Vlog in Blog. You are a great person,AME.
August 20th, 2007 at 10:19 am
A Frankenstein II?
August 20th, 2007 at 10:30 am
AGBell hired “this man” with “this name” and “this background” for a reason. They are going all out to launch a huge campaign to get their propaganda out to as many new hearing parents of deaf babies as possible. That is another reason why the Deaf Bilingual Coaltion is so important. DBC can unite the Deaf Community to work together. There is an army of us in the USA just waiting to roll up our sleeves and get busy.
August 20th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Alexander T. (Telephone) Graham. LOL Kidding apart:
I think that Mr. Graham refers “hearing-impaired parent” to a person who lost hearing due to age as I have seen this term many times in a magazine called “Hearing Health”.
August 20th, 2007 at 10:46 am
No, “with” is correct. And that specific phrase still hang Mr. Graham anyway because it basically declare for once and all that he believes that all deafness is disability with scientific goal of a possible cure *VOMIT*. My deafness does not need to be cured, his association’s CLOSE-MINDEDNESS needs to be cured!!
August 20th, 2007 at 11:06 am
ATG probably have a pictures of XXXXXX (name removed) and AGB hanged in his bedroom wall.
——————–
Edward,
This comment is not appropriate on my blog. I need to remove the name of most despicable person.
Thanks,
Amy Cohen Efron
August 20th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Hi Amy
Are you Jew? I remember saw you wrote G-d in someone’s comments. Jewish people always write G-d not God. If you are Jew, I can understand how you feel about XXXXXX. If XXXXXX had become successful, you will not be here today. If AGB had also become succesful too, I will not be here today because my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents are deaf. To me XXXXXX and AGB are equal most despicable person.
: )
August 20th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Amy - thanks for your comment, and sending me the website.
that’s sad….You stated that ATB makes small organization - BIG. AGBad will NEVER be big, because DCB will conqure AGB one day 
Maybe I’m a hard head? I still believe AGB voted for ATB because of the same name, IF there was someone else there with the SAME TALENT, ATB would be voted.
Anyways - point-off - there shouldn’t be any AGB Organization at all….not allowing Deaf babies to sign?
August 20th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
ERROR!! DCB should be DBC!
August 20th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Yeah I posted in my blog many months ago that I thought that I may have discovered that AGB indeed did have a deaf grandmother on his father’s side. I’m not sure if it is a fact but I found it somewhere that AGB’s father and uncle were heavily involved in speech therapy (I cannot remember the right word but it has something to do with voice). Now you see maybe its true that AGB has a deaf family lineage due to genetics. I’m not sure if the new director is even related to AGB’s family or not but we certainly can investigate into that. It could be true or false.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Well - anyone who read the history of Alexander G. Bell knows that his wife and his mother were both Deaf. Most of his efforts revolved around trying to “help” his relatives (see Wikipedia. It makes sense they would choose a leader for the agency whose background reflects that of its founder’s beginnings.
I think it would be more productive for interested people to set up a new company with goals more in line with the DBC than try to change the AGB organization. Basically all we’re doing is telling each other how bad these organizations are.
Amy, I’d really like to see more of your videos subtitled. We need that to get support from hearing parents - any parent who saw your video would feel excluded and more likely to go in the direction of AGB. Just my two cents. If we want parents to start thinking differently, maybe we do also.
August 20th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Interesting - my comment seems to have disappeared!
August 20th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
oh cool, it’s back now. i just wanted to add, Amy, I wonder about SCIP - how many Deaf professionals join SCIP?
August 20th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
For Jeannette in #8:
Moi aussi! I said to myself, “C’est vraiment incroyable!” when I looked at the name of a quarterly magazine, “Hearing Health” — a six-year subscription sent to me by someone who kept his or her name secret. Au contraïre, my roommate said,
“Look. I had nornmal hearing, but my doctor pencilled me and deafened me overnight!” And I
humbly replied, “Bon.”
August 20th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Jean,
Oui, tout à fait!
Yes, indeed!
August 20th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Two big question for all of you:
Why didn’t AGBAD appoint a successful deaf oralist or CI person to run their organization?
Is it because they can’t find one despite the fact that they have already claimed that CI will make deaf people more intellectual ones?
August 20th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
HELP!! MY FAMILY ALL HAVE HEARING HEALTH ISSUE!! WHAT DO WE DO?? GO TO HIM? Geez, what an idiot he is… This will backfire soon…
August 20th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Re. the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals: their website FAQ explains this as a “professional, ethical way to gather knowledge about others’ businesses so that one can be more competitive with them.”
I wonder if that is what happened to the DBC demonstration in July? Were “Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals” tactics used to gather information about DBC and its plans so that they could be given bad treatment at the convention?
Interesting that a CEO of this company was brought on board at AGBell “for the expertise he brings” to them.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Dianrez,
Yes, I wonder too and I find this very interesting.
AG Bell representatives or conference coordinators never met with DBC protest leaders during that time. There was no follow up, or even an invitation for dialogue.
“They talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk.”
Amy Cohen Efron
August 20th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
FYI Man,
AG Bell appointed Kenneth Levinson as the president for the Board of Directors (1988-1990). Levinson, prefers to speak instead of signing, and he is a long time AG Bell member (1981-1995 and 2002-present).
Based on my knowledge, I don’t recall if there was any person with hearing loss ever served as an executive director of AG Bell. Anyone who can check that out for me?
National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and Self-Help for Hard of Hearing, now Hearing Loss Association (SHHH/HLA) have their executive directors who are/were Deaf or HoH.
Nancy Bloch is a current Deaf Executive Director for NAD. Rocky Stone was Executive Director for SHHH/HLA, and he called himself as hard-of-hearing. Stone passed away several years ago.
Second question - I have no comment to your question, but that is worth asking… grins.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Joseph,
You said, “Amy, I’d really like to see more of your videos subtitled. We need that to get support from hearing parents - any parent who saw your video would feel excluded and more likely to go in the direction of AGB.” -
Would you like to volunteer to write up a transcript of my videoclip? Creating a videoclip is a huge task, and I am more than happy to accept transcripts of any of my videoclips that any of you feel that is important for hearing people to understand what I am saying.
Voice-over is second best way to handle it, and anyone who can send me the .wav file along with transcript. I can add this to my videoclip.
Thanks for bringing up this important issue, Joseph.
Amy Cohen Efron
August 20th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
*chuckling* on the name…however not chuckling about the reason behind choosing him as CEO upon viewing his background….seems to me AGBell is wanting to become an “empire.”
August 20th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Did a female implantée ever become president of AGBell in the late 1990s? I seem to recall that
her name is something like Pauline Tucker.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Whoa! De` ja vou!
~ LaRonda
August 21st, 2007 at 8:46 am
Why not have Project ReadOn subtitle it?
I make movies myself and understand how difficult it is - I’ve made three medium-length films this summer, all of which included subtitles for both deaf/hearing audiences. I’d be happy to help give feedback, but I think the words would come best from you (and you are a fine writer yourself!)
I can’t do voiceovers. I don’t speak that well. Ask a hearing person?
August 21st, 2007 at 10:56 am
Amy Cohen Efron, I have to agree with Joseph; he brought up some good points that help to make power.
You shouldn’t have to make an excuse for captioning or subtitles. How about hearing parents of deaf children; they have the right to know what the Vlog said.
I hope you will express your feelings honestly.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Amy,
Is there any way to find out the names of deaf (hearing-impaired) parents to confirm whether the new AGBAB Executive Director and the AGBAB organization tell us the truth or not?
I am kinda curious about the deaf parents of Alexander T. Graham where they come from and attend the educational facility of the deaf, ex. mainstream, oral and residential school of the deaf.
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
August 21st, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Oh, so AG is CODA. Hearing health issues? What did he talk about respecting them? Deaf is deaf, what’s related to hearing health issues? Maybe he means ringing in ear. Yeah, I do have it once a while but he respects it, huh? Hearing people have ringing in ears sometimes, too, do they?
I HATE being called “hearing impaired.” I am told that I can’t hear so it is hearing impaired. Let’s call hearing people “hands impaired.” They can’t sign. How’s that?! Deaf or Hard of Hearing are not hard to say.
By the way, congratulations to Alexander Graham.
Dora
p.s. Adding substitles are used for national broadcast but for ASL vlogs, why should we have to add substitle for hearings? Hearing people don’t add subtitle to their vlogs either. It would be a good practice for those parents with Deaf/HH children or ASL students! Don’t you think?
August 21st, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I am very curious too, Robert.
I have a gut feeling that Mr. Graham’s ‘hearing-impaired’ parent may have an age-related hearing loss.
Hearing health is a common phrase for people who lost some of their hearing due to the overexposure of noise pollution. It is funny that how AG Bell uses these words, hearing health to apply to all types of hearing losses, including Deaf as a linguistic and cultural minority. AG Bell prefers to call them with a pathological/medical standpoint that ‘we’ have a serious hearing health issue!
We need a vaccine! We need treatment! We need help! We need to learn to listen and talk!
I wouldn’t be surprised that these words, “hearing health” will be a ‘catch-all’ phrase for many people to use.
Imagine that someone will ask me,
“Amy, do you have a serious hearing health problem?”
My response will be with sarcastic tone,
“Yeah, my hearing health is determined unhealthy…” with a fake frown on my face.
Bwah har ha ha! Sheesh!
August 21st, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Dora
I see some hearing people add subtitle to their vlogs. You will find YouTube with captioning or subtitles.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Hi Amy!
Donna Sorkin–who wears a CI–served as AGB’s Executive Director for a few years.
And AGB has had several deaf presidents (including, as you noted, Ken Levinson).
August 21st, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Hello Amy!
Thanks for the wonderful chuckles!
It is amazing about who run AGBell. HEARING PEOPLE except Kevin Levinson ran/runs AGBell. What does this say to you?
I have a question - how many hearing people attended AGBell conferences? How many audiologist/CI doctors attended? How many true deaf oralist attended? Do you know? Members of AGBell? Board/officers?
I bet largest number is hearing family members of deaf kids/adults. 2nd largest is audiologist/doctors. Smallest attendees is true deaf oralists. Maybe I am wrong. I have my own reason to draw parallel with other oppressive group but first, can anyone find out the percentage of AGBell hearing/deaf attendees/members?
Bob Rourke
August 21st, 2007 at 3:35 pm
For Amy in #43,
It is highly likely that Alexander Telephone Graham carries a deaf gene.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Hi Bob!
I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but I’d say that a little more than a third of AGB’s Board is comprised of folks who are deaf or hard of hearing.
As for the percentages that attended AGB’s convention, I don’t know. My gut is that professionals were the largest, parents and their children were second largest, and then deaf adults. But all three were significant, so I could very well be wrong in the order.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Thanks, John S.
Actually, I recently came across the article that opened my eyes. So I am wondering about the percentage that attended AGB’s convention.
The article is about the recent ex-gay conference in Phoenix.
The members of largest group that attended the ex-gay conference are mostly family relatives/close friends of gays. The second largest group consisted of anti-gay church leaders and bible study group. The smallest group consisted of the ones who struggle with homosexualities (so-called “ex-gays”).
Why are ex-gays the members of smallest group of all while the conference is all about them? As some of you may know, James Dobson who is straight, runs ex-gay ministry just like Alexander T. Graham. Doesn’t it smell nasty and foul? It certainly sounds like a AGB Convention.
Anyway, this openly gay guy who wrote about the ex-gay conference, certainly learned a lot about ex-gays and to be more tactful with ex-gays more effectively.
Maybe to participate AGB Convention, I think learning about AGB deeply is a great way to combat anti-ASL fever!
Source: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2007/02/15/224
Bob Rourke
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:07 am
ATB is no relation to AGB!
I have a question for you. Why fret over ATB?
We should focus getting children learning ASL at early stages!
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Digression: I have heard that AGBell
Conference has been hiring interpreters
for the last ten years. Meaning? We CAN
wake up audiences by using Why-questions
posed to panelists.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Amy.. this is one of the best vlogs I ve seen on your website and yes I do see the irony in that! I guess the AGB Society still aim to stir up controversy and confusion among people in North America. Thank goodness we have better sense than them, eh?
Keep up the good work!
August 24th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Deja vu! It is absurd. Sigh .. what’s wrong with these members who elected ATG as an Executive Director? He is terribly underqualified for that position!
My dad has a hearing health issue because he is ashamed and desperately looking for a teeny tiny hearing aid. I found one on the refrigerator at my parents’ home. I scoffed. LoL …. I hope my dad is not gonna read this here. (I doubt it thou) As for us .. we don’t have a hearing health issues here because we are Deaf Pride ASL-ers!
August 25th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Hi Amy!
I am laughing so hard!!! I hold this until I need good laugh..so I click this and thanks!!! you made my day!!!
wow!!! they must have egoism problems! anyway please continue with your vlogs! I need good laugh!
Gary
September 1st, 2007 at 3:12 am
OY VEY!! *choaking* “Hearing health issues…..?” THAT tells us a LOT about the mentality of these people who ‘runs’ the AGBell organization. He’s right on par with President Bush *smirks*
honey.. I agree with you 1000% Preposterous!
RF Walker
November 7th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
i was suprised dat was acutally happen
November 9th, 2007 at 5:44 am
TIME TO CRUSH A.G.B. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 9th, 2007 at 5:48 am
BEFORE A.G.B. success with Alexander T Graham’s skill in building A.G.B. to a bigger business.
January 21st, 2008 at 10:07 pm
[...] that word, competitive intelligence? I mentioned this word before in my blog several months ago about AG Bell’s new executive director, Alexander T. Graham. I blogged [...]