I think the main point of Sheri Farinha letter is the concern of the wide spread biased propaganda movement using Shari Roan as a biased writer for LA Times.
Shari wrote another another article;
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/08/16/cochlear_implants_are_helping_more_youngsters_hear/

Regarding about Alexander Graham Bell and his organizations, AG Bell is the biggest, most destructive propagandist since 1880 Milan and his powerful wealth promoted banning Sign Language that still is subtly permeated to the public today by using people like Shari Roan to write biased one-sided ideology of using auditory devices and not have any successful stories of those Deaf children and adults that learned American Sign Language after the failed the AGBell ideology with learning to hear and speak before educating the brain with a language.

I praise Sheri Farinha for writing that letter to drop some seeds about who and what is behind of all this audism propaganda movement.

Respectfully yours
John

Anyway, this longwinded spiel was NOT published in the Los Angeles Times. At first, I was shocked that the newspaper would publish this rant but I looked online and nothing’s there. Makes sense.

Sheri–what’s this Civil Rights Amendment you write of? The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments? I’m aware of the ERA but that wasn’t ratified.

And, finally, Sheri—I love this argument:

“. . .the promotion of an antiquated concept that deaf children can be made to be hearing, mirroring that of Hitler’s racist ideas of “anyone not like me must be changed or eradicated”.”

Yup, just like Hitler did, we’re killing off the deaf children nowadays. Your arguments are powerful and a tour de force. Keep it up.

The part about Alexander Graham Bell and his organizations could be saved for a different question. Here it doesn’t answer the news article.

A better focus would be to focus remarks on just the false concepts of the original news story: the child without the CI won’t grow up to be independent. There is “ironclad” evidence that the CI is safe in babies and young children. Also: the implication that “safe” means free of side effects and complications.

We need to learn how to be more specific and precise on our letter campaign and letter to the editor.

Let this “letter to the editor” as a best lesson how to portray ourselves in the general media.

I guess that my previous blog posting on the questions of latest media coverages on cochlear implants implored Sheri Ann Farnihi to write the letter to the editor.

I also was responsible for the controvestial “YouTube” posting about fictional deaf parents removed the cochlea of their hearing son from my previous blog posting – “It’s a Time for Radical Notions”.

I am truly proud of myself that I could do some influences on Deaf America and other deaf people around the world from my computer desk.

Many thanks to John Ebgert for posting Shari’s letter to the editor and his tireless efforts on behalf of deaf babies and youngsters along with other DBC leaders.

Robert L. Mason (RLM)