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The Spectacle Blog
Byron York has the story. Tom Perez, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division who on the New Black Panther voter intimidation case already has pushed the demarcation line of prevarication to its outer limits in testimony before a congressional committee and before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, now has completely severed all links between his lefty-ideological, artificially constructed world and the normal realms of common sense and logic. Several colleges wanted to institute a voluntary program to use the Kindle book-reading device* for its class texts. Repeat: VOLUNTARY. But Kindle didn’t have voice-activation gizmos (or somesuch) for the blind. Reports York: “The Civil Rights Division informed the schools they were under investigation. In subsequent talks, the Justice Department demanded the universities stop distributing the Kindle; if blind students couldn’t use the device, then nobody could.”
This is lunacy. Sheer lunacy. How does it hurt a blind student one iota if his normally sighted classmates use Kindle? Does that keep a blind student from getting the texts braille or another blind-friendly format? No. Does that do a single smidgen of a fraction of a hemi-demi-semi-quaver to violate the civil rights of the blind person? Of course not. No, no, and no, no, no, no. The educational opportunities and/or experiences of blind students would be affected in no way at all if other students use Kindle.
York digs up a great quote:
“As a blind person, I would never want to be associated with any movement that punished sighted students, particularly for nothing they had ever done,” says Russell Redenbaugh, a California investor who lost his sight in a childhood accident and later served for 15 years on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “It’s a gross injustice to disadvantage one group, and it’s bad policy that breeds resentment, not compassion.”
Sometimes there is a gray area in public policy and in civil rights laws. (Oops — maybe I just violated a civil right by using a word meaning a color — gray — when talking about people who can’t see colors. Maybe Tom Perez will sue me. Gee, I’m scared.) Some things truly can be open to interpretation. But this can’t. Allowing students to use one electronic reading device that blind people can’t use is no different than allowing students to use one of those old-fashioned things called “books,” with printed letters in ink on a page, that blind people also can’t use. And I defy Mr. Perez to empanel the first 50 citizens off the street and cite a single civil rights law in a way that would convince a single one of those 50 random citizens to believe that the law he himself cited were actually being violated.
As has been amply demonstrated elsewhere, Perez is a loon. He is a menace. He should be nowhere near any position of power over the laws of the land.
* As an aside, I myself hate the very notion of Kindle. Not only am I a techno-tard, but I have a near-romantic (in the sense of idealized) attachment to the printed page and especially to actual, honest-to-goodness books and newspapers. Obviously, then, I rise to the defense of Kindle out of principle rather than out of self-interest.
View all comments (16) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/08/03/tom-perez-kindles-bonfire-of-o
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Quartermaster| 8.3.10 @ 1:11PM
"I have a near-romantic (in the sense of idealized) attachment to the printed page and especially to actual, honest-to-goodness books...."
That's so 15th Century.
Actually, I like the concept of the Kindle. But, I like to have my reference library in both pdf on my computer, and in hard copy on the shelf. I just use my lap top in place of a Kindle when I'm doing research. The ability to search electronically is very high on my list of desired things, but doing the actual reading is often more convenient in the book itself.
Quin| 8.3.10 @ 4:22PM
I don't think it's 15th Century, but it probably is mid-2oth Century. As I've often said, I may have been born in 1964, but in most ways (not racial) I grew up in the 1950s.
;)
Ex Libris| 8.3.10 @ 7:23PM
Anyone who prefers reading a Kindle over a real book should have his head examined, but "hating the very notion" is a bit much. I own one of the gadgets and it has its uses. I have a horror of running out of things to read when travelling, which would result in my lugging a bulky satchel full of books around with me. Now I can bring as much as I want and even get more while on the road. It is also nice to have ready access to a wide range of "great books" without having to dedicate large swaths of scarce shelf space to them. You may have been turned off by some of the hype, but it's really not bad. I date back to the 1950s, by the way.
Maurice Peret| 8.10.10 @ 2:22PM
Obviously the point has been woefully missed here. There is not a question of denying sighted students a means of reading electronic books. Rather, it is a matter of a process that will ultimately lead to yet another inaccessible electronic environment rendering it off limits to the blind. The organized blind are merely leveling the playing field by demanding that companies like Amazon build in accessibility right out of the box just as Apple has done with the I-phone. It's not a lot to ask and does not vialate anybody else's rights. It is simply in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Americans with Disabilities ACT (ADA). So, what's the problem with that?
Let's get some perspective here, shall we?
Jeff| 8.3.10 @ 1:23PM
Perez is blinder than anyone.
Sheila| 8.3.10 @ 1:24PM
The opinion of the blind man quoted, Russell Redenbaugh, is considered extraordinary today. When deaf lesbians deliberately seek the sperm of a deaf man to produce, via artificial insemination, a deaf child, the idea that punishing the able-bodied in favor of the "differently abled" breeds resentment is miles off the plantation. Of course, the idea that the deaf and blind are differently abled is holy writ rather than the height of lunacy in our through-the-looking-glass world. Decline and fall.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.3.10 @ 6:19PM
Sheila,
I'm sorry, but you just piss me off signing with "decline and fall".
I don't know what hell-hole you live in, but down here in Texas and Oklahoma, we are busy re-building our country, with courage and determination...and patience with whinies like you.
Buck-up, buckle down, go to the shooting range and get the rust off.
Or...just lay down in your ditch and die. You are getting borrrrrring.
Jim Treacher | 8.3.10 @ 1:31PM
"As an aside, I myself hate the very notion of Kindle."
Yes, the very idea of reading words off a screen rather than the sacred page is absolutely disg-- Hey, wait a minute!
Sarah| 8.3.10 @ 2:59PM
*Ouch*
That made my day.
Fred Segunda| 8.3.10 @ 1:42PM
"Techno-tard?" Perez may sue you for that!
ID10T Errors| 8.3.10 @ 3:05PM
Kindle - the "blind guy's" Friend! If by 'blind' you mean low vision. Why? FONTS!! the size changes so technically it is in fact an accessable device. Not kidding. v. good friend recently purchased a Kindle, he is legally blind/low vision and needs large print programs to use a computer. He LOVES it, no more waiting a year or more for the LOC to record or braille books. He has them the same day as sighted readers. THAT'S accessible. Folks who are totally blind need different devices and honestly the problem isn't the device that's just technology and relatively easily solved. The real problem is the PUBLISHERS. Ask the NYT if they will license thier content for speech access which generally requires an open format like text for a spech device to read it. "Too easy to copy/duplicate" is the reason they generally say they won't.
BTW using the same principle, I am financially disadvantaged so folks can't go to Harvard because I can't afford it right?
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.3.10 @ 6:24PM
Idiot, I love your handle.
There are any number of retired people who would be delighted to read aloud ...and tape...paper books or kindles to blind folks.
Check out your local Church for a candidate, folks.
Marc Jeric| 8.4.10 @ 12:22AM
We are not getting communized - we are already there. The 40+ White House komissars remind me of the communist hell from which I escaped lo so many years ago. Abu Hussein al-Mombassa (or wherever this marxist Muslim was born) has it all preprogrammed and is on schedule. Kill the Whitey - nationalize everything - get those local soviets activated with the $8.7 billion from the stimulus money to perform large scale vote fraud.
Dennis Sevakis| 8.4.10 @ 11:03AM
Wayback when (think Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman), I once read in an officially published manual -- one that was issued by your friendly, helpful federal regulators regarding the implementation of the then "new" Americans with Disabilities Act -- that employers would be expected to hire "readers" for blind persons who would otherwise be capable of performing the task under consideration. This must certainly fall under the category of "one employee for the price of two." I don't know if that concept was ever pushed to even partial implementation, but I paid no heed even so. This kind of b.s. has been going on for quite some time now, the bastard progeny of Administrations Democrat or Republican. After all, who ever claims parentage of such nonsense? You really think anything is going to change after this fall's election? Yes, indeed, hope doth spring eternal!
Oldefarte| 8.4.10 @ 3:32PM
Perez [and his boss at DofJ (along with his boss at 1600)] are obviously all MORONS; and the theory of this situation makes about as much sense as [the old saying goes] A SCREEN DOOR IN A SUBMARINE! As to the secondary issue of electronic readers, they should never be allowed to replace completely printed books due to their susceptability from deleation, erasing, elimination,etc [just as with voting machines versus paper balloting]. If this DofJ is stupid enough to sue an individual state over immigration and to sweep under the rug a slam dunk legal decision for racial political reasons, then their idiotic reasoning for not providing electronic readers [because o fnon-access to blind students] to schools is [or should not be] surprising to anyone of normal intelligence!!!!!!!!