April 11: Robert Haig Weitbrecht (1920-1983)

[Image description: black-and-white photo of Robert Weitbrecht, seated, pointing to his TTY and showing it to a man leaning in to see.]

The inventor of the TTY modem (telephone typewriter, now known as TDD), Robert Weitbrecht, was born on this date in 1920, in Orange, California. Weitbrecht, deaf from birth and an astronomer by training, was a ham radio operator in the 1940s--so he had the personal interest and technical expertise to devise alternative ways to communicate electronically, long before texting or twitter or anysuch.

In his memory, TDI has a biennial Robert H. Weitbrecht Telecommunications Access Award to "the indivudual who has made outstanding contributions by any means to improve accessibility to telecommunications and media in the United States."

Penny and Mike speak!

If you get this in time, Penny Richards and I are going to be featured on the Independence Journal radio show this evening, Thursday April 24th at 7:30pm EDT. The subject of the interview is "Disability Blogging." The show is streamed online at the SUNY New Paltz student radio station, The EDGE - http://www.wfnp.org

Click on the address above. Then click on the HOME tab on the top left of the page. Then click on, Webcasting NOW!>> on the right side of the page. Looking forward to your comments.

Radio interview with Burch & Joyner

Disability history on your iPod--it's a click, drag, and drop away. North Carolina Public Radio aired a nice long half-hour interview today with Susan Burch and Hannah Joyner, authors of Unspeakable: A Life Story of Junius Wilson (UNC Press 2007). It's online here.

In the news...

Update on the Rod Liddle editorial from last week's Times of London: today were published some replies (under the unfortunate headline "Coping with Disability"), including one brief comment, "I have no choice but to live with my disability, but I can choose not to be afflicted with Liddle's opinions." Unfortunately, when those ugly opinions are widely held, they're an affliction for all of us, whether we read them or not.

And big kudos to Joseph Shapiro, whose excellent NPR reporting from the Katrina zone this morning is worth a listen if you get a chance, here. Listen to a medical evacuation organizer tell Carmen Vidaurre that her son Joseph's wheelchair can't be loaded onto the plane. Listen to Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, comment that "There were really three vectors involved here, race, poverty, and disability."

On the same subject, Marta Russell has a new commentary up at Znet today, Being Disabled and Poor in New Orleans.