I have mixed feelings about memes. Some are great, some are inane. I’ve gotten quite a few through e-mail, and I’ve forwarded some on. They’re a great way to learn more about close friends, or people I’ve been wanting to get to know better. They’re also a fun way to share a bit about oneself.

Today, in the spirit of the season, I’ve imported this Christmas meme from a blog I read daily, Funny the World. So– a hat tip to Bev for providing the fodder for today’s post, and here’s a little bit about how I view the season…

[Caveat: If you are younger than about 12-13, I’d stop reading RIGHT NOW and go find something else to do, or your faith will be severely tested!]

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? I like both. When I was growing up, we had eggnog the week or two before Christmas, right before bedtime, when we’d read Christmas stories. Nowadays I’m more likely to drink hot chocolate or spiced (or mulled!) cider.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa always brought gifts wrapped in white tissue, with red ribbon, and flecked with colored glitter, with the words “For Mr. Sandman, From Santa” written out in script akin to a Cyrillic style font. Santa was very skilled in calligraphy, and still is.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored– the white ones never do much for me. I’ve always preferred the traditional colored lights, tho I do admit I enjoy those lights you can set to blink fast, slow, or on an alternating track. They’re kind of fun to look at!

4. Do you hang mistletoe? As a child, Mr. Sandman’s home always had mistletoe hanging in the doorway. As an adult, Mr. Sandman has Mrs. Sandman, who has no problem with finding an excuse to be kissed. Mrs. Sandman probably wouldn’t be too cool with Mr. Sandman kissing their guests or visitors, so Mr. Sandman hasn’t bothered to indulge in homage to the druidic past.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Anywhere between the day after Thanksgiving and the second full week of December. The first Sunday of Advent was traditionally when Mr. Sandman’s family put their decorations up, but this year, Mr. Sandman spent his weekend being a good househusband, cleaning, dusting, mopping, and then hauling a box of decorations and ornaments from storage. The home is now good to go.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Julekage, a Norwegian Christmas fruit bread that is somewhat similar to the Italian panettone. Since Mr. Sandman is partially of Norwegian heritage, this is a rich (and delicious!) family tradition Mr. Sandman enjoys.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? There’s nothing that stands out by itself, but I’ve always enjoyed the time right after all the decorations are put up. It’s always so festive. I also like seeing Christmas lights around the neighborhood. It’s always so dreary right after Christmas, when everything gets taken down. The walls look so bare, and everyone’s yards aren’t quite as magic anymore…

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Mr. Sandman saw a hidden gift which he assumed was for a sibling, and thought nothing more of it. Imagine his chagrin on Christmas morning when he saw that particular gift was from Santa. Visions of sugarplums went BANG!, and a cherished part of childhood evaporated.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes, one gift traditionally is opened on Christmas Eve. We still do this even now.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Without rhyme or reason. An angel graces the top, then the lights, then German-style ornaments. I’ve never been into tinsel and shiny balls, or commercial ornaments such as Disney characters, Coca-Cola balloons, and the like.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Snow? What snow? With the exception of three years in childhood and extended periods as an adult, Mr. Sandman has never lived in places with snow. However, he loves it from around right before Thanksgiving until January 2. After that, NO SNOW. Roll on, springtime!

12. Can you ice skate? Never have, never will.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? No… all my gifts are favorites, because they come/came from people who love me. However, if YOU send me a gift, it’ll be my favorite, until I get something from another one of you. Tens and twenties are special favorites of mine.

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? The general spirit of the season– that feeling of “magic” in the air. It’s never been about the gifts (well, at least not for years now!); for me it’s more about the feeling of cheer and goodwill.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Um… yes, I’m one of those people. I love fruitcake (if done properly!).

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? As much as I may grumble about it, putting up the decorations, because once that’s done, Christmas is here.

17. What tops your tree? An angel one of the in-laws sent us. While I’d eventually like to find a more traditional-looking angel, this one has served us well for the past few years, and will continue to be on top for some time to come.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving– I try to carefully consider what people might *really* enjoy, and there’s usually too many things I’d like to give. In past years, our checkbook has kept us frugal, but hopefully in the years to come, we’ll expand our giving with increased donations to charities and the like. One place I’d like to spend a little money at is Heifer International, where you can donate an animal to a community in another country/on another continent, and help reduce hunger and improve people’s lives. Actually, looking over their site, we could probably start doing that this year…

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? As a deaf person, this might seem like an oxymoron. But I *do* enjoy Christmas music, and especially like seeing ASL versions. Two favorites are “We Three Kings of Orient Are” and “Silent Night.”

20. Candy canes? I used to love them as a child, but these days, it’s all about fruitcake, pies, and other goodies.

21. Favorite Christmas movie? There are three shows/movies that are mandatory viewing this time of year: “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” (the animated one– no Jim Carrey allowed in this house!), and “Miracle on 34th Street” (the 1947 version– there was absolutely no need to remake what was already a perfect film). If you haven’t seen this last one, run, do not walk, and rent/buy it. There’s a reason Edmund Gwenn won the Oscar for his role.

22. What do you leave for Santa? The traditional offering was always homemade cookies and milk. Mr. Sandman is a Santa-in-training, awaiting the day he can fully adopt the role. In this guise, he definitely likes homemade cookies and milk.

[It seems to me there should be 24, or 25 of these. But there aren’t. As for the more jaded among you, there’s 12 shopping days left. What are you waiting for?? Send me an e-mail and I’ll send back my address, so that your gift to me can become my Favorite Gift, at least until the *next* Favorite Gift arrives in the mail. Get hopping.]

As many of you probably know by now, Dr. Robert Davila is to be the interim president of Gallaudet University starting January 1, 2007. I think it’s a fine choice, and hopefully Dr. Davila will start by tackling some of the various items on many people’s agenda, including the short list I included in my last post. Any of the three candidates would have been okay with me, but as I said, names, resumes, and words are only so much; it’s actions that will count with me, and I suspect with many others, in the days, weeks, and months to come.

The Washington Post came out this morning with a relatively short article stating that today would be the announcement of the interim president, and quickly outlined the strengths of each candidate. I really could not have said it better myself. Hopefully Dr. Davila’s widespread contacts in his Rolodex will be able to help him as he assumes the reins and steers the leadership of Gallaudet through the next 18-24 months.

Good luck, Dr. Davila. You’re starting with a clean slate– how the campus and outside community views you and judges you and your work is now up to you. Best wishes for a successful tenure from this humble corner of the universe.

[Just minutes before I typed this up, the Washington Post filed an updated story on this morning’s event.]

I’m in the rearguard here, but better late than never, I suppose. By now, the majority of you know that the Interim President Selection Advisory Committee (IPSAC), headed by Dr. Jane Dillehay, submitted its recommendations to the Board, and the BoT has announced the three finalists for the (most likely thankless!) job of Interim President at Gallaudet University. As most of you know, they are Dr. Robert Davila (Letter of Intent, CV); Dr. William Marshall (Letter of Intent, CV); and Dr. Steve Weiner (Letter of Intent, CV).
Since the initial announcement, quite a few deaf bloggers have commented on these three men. BiblioMarket comments briefly, and announces his support for Davila; Bionic Ear also made a short statement, but is rather noncommittal. Elizabeth over at Mishka Zena also likes Davila, while Carl Schroeder at Kalakau’s Corner limits his commentary to a criticism of Dr. Marshall’s ASL skills. Finally, Ridor over at RidorLIVE, who always has something to say, initially came out as against Davila, but has subsequently admitted he’d be okay with either Davila or Weiner.

I, on the other hand, do not have any strong feelings for or against any of the three, and while it’s interesting to see where people stand, I think playing this game isn’t in the best interests of Gallaudet or the community. This is, as Jamie Berke at About.com says, the “ultimate deaf temp job.” The last man left standing after this weekend has the job for, at best, two years. The job itself is already a tough one– being a college/university president is stressful, and for this particular slot is going to be even more so, what with heightened campus and community expectations, as well as a far more intense-than-usual media spotlight. My sympathies to whoever elects to occupy College Hall come January 1. The fact that quite a few people chose to throw their hats in the ring is a good sign; there’s still interest in leading Gallaudet, and hopefully, there’ll be a healthy pool of applicants for the permanent presidency when the time comes. Glancing over the comments in various forums, I found myself agreeing with Neil and his comments over at Ridor’s domain. Neil says in part,

…is it a requirement that next president wear their “D”eafness on their sleeve? This is a dangerous question. We got rid of JKF because she was an example of who a leader should not be (deaf or hearing) while rejecting her assessment that she wasn’t “Deaf Enough.” Dr. Davila has the background of someone who SHOULD have been picked as Prez the first time around. If the FSSA rejects him because of any number of reasons Ridor mentioned, what does that say about the group’s rejection of the “Not Deaf Enough” card?

I agree– the battle over Fernandes should never have been one questioning her credentials as a member of the community. It was extremely unfortunate that public perception (and within the community as well to some extent) focused narrowly on whether her bona fides as a deaf person were established. This is what disheartened me a little about Carl Schroeder’s comments: we can’t afford to revisit this dangerous path again, even if a large number of people feel that nothing less than a champion of ASL will do.

Rather than dissect the genealogy and community status of the candidates, or break down their resumes (all of which look relatively good, IMHO), I’d like to briefly touch on a few issues I think should be the primary concern for the next president. I fully agree with Steve Weiner’s contention that “…the university CANNOT be on a holding pattern and wait for the next president to begin implementation of new initiatives.” He is correct: Whether it’s Marshall, Davila, or Weiner, the next president can’t just rubber stamp decrees and do the bidding of the BoT and other administrators. He is going to have to guide the university through the next 18 to 24 months, and leave the institution in satisfactory condition to hand over to the next administration.

Here’s a brief laundry list:

1) rescind the “Guidelines for Expressive Activities and Assemblies”; if such an outline is needed, then it needs to be revisited with an eye on a reasonable approach and expectations. The document as it stands was obviously drafted to curb the protest, and should never have been issued.

2) immediately conduct an investigation into DOSS/DPS, and begin the much-needed reforms in that department, starting with ASL proficiency. As I suggested earlier, it wouldn’t hurt to start recruiting from among advanced ASL students, CODAs, and others with a genuine interest in deafness, ASL, and the Gallaudet community.

3) effectively address the deficiencies within the PART report and ensure that accreditation succeeds. This one is particularly crucial, but won’t be solved overnight. It will be a long-term effort that will continue into the next administration– but it’s crucial that necessary corrections begin now.

4) begin the process of healing the cracks in the community. Part of this will involve tackling thorny topics such as audism, racism, sexism, voyeurism, botulism… you get the idea. Both Weiner and Marshall acknowledged the split in both the campus and larger communities in their letters of interest. While Davila makes no mention of recent events, I would hope he too recognizes that these are not ordinary times, and whoever ascends to the top post is going to have to be a peacemaker extraordinaire, on top of all the other responsibilities of running Gallaudet.

and 5) I’d like to see the next president begin to formulate a new policy on how to deal with deaf education from top to bottom. While Gallaudet is not solely responsible for the finished products of deaf ed and special ed programs nationwide, it certainly can take the lead. Once upon a time, Gallaudet required an entrance exam, and those graduates of residential schools who passed the exam and went to Gallaudet were the pride of their local communities. Gallaudet Normal School graduates went on to teach in schools and programs, and influenced the course of such schools. There was a symbiotic relationship throughout the realms of deaf education, and I think Gallaudet needs to return to this to some degree. While I in no way advocate a total return to the past (for example, the Normal School didn’t admit deaf graduate students for decades; this was one of the paramount issues that forced a break between Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell), I do think Gallaudet could do better where K-12 education is concerned.

There’s tons of other areas that could be improved or worked on, sure, but I think these five elements are among the more essential items on the agenda Gallaudet’s new leadership should pursue. To me, the ability of the interim president to tackle this list will count far more with me than whether the man in question is the best ASL signer of all time, or has a ten-generation heritage of deaf family members, or graduated from the “right” schools, or any other criteria.

[P.S.: I think it’s rather ironic the final announcement will take place on December 10, traditionally “Gallaudet-Clerc Day” in the past, an event that was often celebrated with a banquet and a tribute to these two men.]

Police abuse occurs often enough in society in general that many well-known incidents (especially against blacks!) stand out in the public consciousness: Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, and Abner Louima are just some examples. The latest in the news these days concern Sean Bell in New York, who was shot 50 times, and here in Los Angeles, just up the road a ways at UCLA, where Mostafa Tabatabainejad was tasered by a UCLA security officer a couple weeks ago. Often, these actions are against minorities, or people at a disadvantage when confronted by police. Unfortunately, we deaf are no different.

As many of you probably already know, Doug Bahl was assaulted by officers in Minnesota, apparently after a routine traffic stop. According to the initial online reports through various blogs, Bahl was pepper sprayed in the eyes, then beaten, then held over an entire weekend, all without the benefit of an interpreter, before he was released. You can see pictures of Bahl here, and Mishka Zena and Ridor both commented on this sad incident. MNSpeak also comments about Bahl’s run-in with the police.

Right now, Bahl is apparently not commenting on what has happened (although either he or his family apparently consented to the release of pictures of him), per his lawyer’s advice. The facts are still a bit sketchy, but regardless of what attempt(s) Bahl made to indicate his deafness, there is no excuse for the suffering he went through, and there certainly is no excuse at all for the lack of interpreting services, especially in a large metropolis such as Minneapolis-St. Paul. I can’t find any coverage in either the Strib or the Pi Press; this kind of thing should not go unnoticed.

Regardless of what story eventually emerges from Bahl’s traumatic experience (and I wonder when those photos were taken; if it was soon after he was beaten that’s horrible enough; but if that’s what he looked like upon release, one can only imagine what he looked like in the immediate aftermath of the attack by the police), what’s really sad is that this isn’t an isolated incident. The scary part here is that Bahl could have been any of us, under the right (wrong?) circumstances. Ridor himself has commented a few times on his blog about incidents involving the police and deaf individuals: Jeff Beardsley and the North Las Vegas police, and a disturbing incident involving two deaf men and the Falls Church police.

Ridor isn’t the only one; while I can no longer find it, Trudy Suggs commented on a past version of her blog about five or six years ago about her own experience with the police, and she recently wrote about another example of mistreatment of deaf people by the authorities at i711.com. Some of you may remember a few years back, when the Detroit police shot to death Errol Shaw. Despite whatever mental problems Shaw may or may not have had, the shooting was an extreme reaction that really wasn’t necessary.

I cannot find further information, but on this page, under the comment posted by MAC titled, “022 is watching” is a description of the pepper spraying and shooting of a deaf man named David Baker in Burlington, North Carolina. Of course, as dissected on several sites over the past couple of months, there’s the well-known tragedy of Carl Dupree, who died in Ely Center on the Gallaudet campus in the fall of 1990 (and it’s amazing to me that despite the problems clearly demonstrated in October 2006, the BoT *still* has yet to do anything about DOSS/DPS; I’m hoping the new interim president will make reform of this department one of his or her first priorities next month). Here in Los Angeles, a lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Sherriff’s Department is in the process of being finalized. You can see the details of the settlement here (scroll down about halfway).

It’s not even limited to the United States: in Poirua, New Zealand, there’s this case of a deaf man who was mauled by police dogs, and this release from the Canadian Hearing Society discusses the case of a young deaf man who was attacked by Toronto police. All of these are just a few of the cases that I turned up through a couple of simple searches; what other incidents and tragedies have happened that are not reported, or receive minimal coverage?

While all the recent energies of the community has been focused on Gallaudet, as the case of Doug Bahl illustrates, we have many, many other injustices to right, and many other issues that are, to my mind, of equal or greater importance than who leads a college campus. Even if Bahl’s case turns out to be far more complicated than it seems, the lack of interpreting is completely inappropriate. As the pictures of Bahl and the details of the cases I’ve listed above indicate, police officers and other authority figures often commit assaults and other actions that are disproportionate to the actual situation.

This is where we can start to harness and channel some of the targeted actions similar to what many groups did during the Tent City Protest; bring attention to community relations with the police where you live. Contact the newspapers, the television stations, and community organizations. Develop educational materials and work with elected and appointed officials. Work with or push your local social services agency to take action. Those of you that vlog could take a page from Joseph Rainmound and create a vlog that combines photos of Bahl and other victims with commentary on mistreatment and lack of access to interpreting from authority figures. This is a problem that we can come together to solve, and a problem we need to tackle now, not tomorrow. One Errol Shaw, one Doug Bahl, one Carl Dupree is enough– we don’t need more.