NFB

Flash! The newsies were out in force for "Newsline Night '99" at the National Federation of the Blind headquarters in South Baltimore.Katharine Graham of the Washington Post spoke to the black-tie bunch about her years in the news biz. And Mike Waller, publisher and CEO of The Baltimore Sun, and Tom Curley, publisher and president of USA Today, were each honored for their contributions to Newsline, the electronic telephone system that NFB uses to deliver more...

The National Federation of the Blind yesterday filed suit in U.S. District Court in Boston seeking to force Internet service giant American Online Inc. to upgrade its system so that blind users can have full access to its Internet site and programs.In its suit, the Baltimore-based NFB and nine blind Boston-area residents said AOL, the nation's largest Internet service provider with 19 million customers, violates the Americans With Disabilities Act by discriminating against the blind. Its system is incompatible with software designed to make the Internet accessible to blind users, the suit argues.

Kenneth Jernigan, a relentless fighter for blind people around the world and president of the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind (NFB) from 1968 to 1986, died of lung cancer Monday night at his Irvington home. He was 71.During his leadership, the federation became the nation's most powerful organization of blind people. Its affiliates increased from 32 states to 50, Puerto Rico and District of Columbia, while membership grew to 50,000.Euclid Herie of Toronto, president of the World Blind Union, for which Mr. Jernigan served as president of the North American-Caribbean Region, said:"Dr.

As some sang "Amazing Grace," more than 200 blind and sighted people marched one more time yesterday for Kenneth Jernigan, their fallen national leader who had led them on many angry protest marches.The march followed a Mass of the Resurrection at St. Joseph's Monastery Roman Catholic Church in Irvington for Jernigan, the blind former president of the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind (NFB) who died here Monday of lung cancer at 71.Mourners from around the country and Canada heard his blind successor, Marc Maurer, eulogize him as "the man who gave us all the tools to live."

A steady stream of old friends -- maybe 200 in the past months -- have been visiting Kenneth Jernigan at his home in Irvington.Pals who followed the old fighter for the blind as he tenaciously led fights for jobs, for access, for independent living, for Braille and for civil rights have come to say thank you and goodbye to a dying blind man they say expanded horizons for thousands of people.James Omvig, a 63-year-old blind lawyer, and his sighted wife Sharon flew from Tucson, Ariz., to visit with the president emeritus of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB)

Starting tomorrow, in movie theaters across the nation, kids get to laugh and howl at blind-guy humor. It's the slapstick of Leslie Nielsen as the legendary "Mr. Magoo" in the Disney feature film treatment of an animated character who was deep-sixed two decades ago.I know, I know: Mr. Magoo wasn't really blind. He was nearsighted, too vain to wear his eyeglasses. But, draw the lines anyway you like, folks, the Goo Man was funny because he could hardly see; he stumbled his way through life and misunderstood his surroundings.

It was to be an epic voyage.Hank Dekker, a sailor blinded by glaucoma in 1978, would travel -- alone -- 3,400 miles across the perilous Atlantic to Britain.The voyage, intended to demonstrate the courage, ingenuity and skill of the blind, began July 29, sponsored in part by $50,000 from the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind.But the gods did not smile on this extraordinary voyage.Today, Mr. Dekker, 59, and the federation are in federal courts here and in New Jersey, locked in a conflict with all the fury of a North Atlantic storm.

If his 30-foot sailboat is willing, Hank Dekker will be on the high seas within two weeks, bound once more for Plymouth, England.Dekker, bidding to become the first blind person to sail alone across the Atlantic Ocean, suffered a setback less than 200 miles into the 3,400-mile journey and had to turn back because of electronics failures Friday night and a three-inch crack in the hull."

Hank Dekker has sailed alone across the Pacific Ocean twice and later this month plans to take on the Atlantic -- even though he can't see the water.Mr. Dekker, 58, is blind.Yesterday, at a news conference on the Baltimore waterfront, the National Federation of the Blind introduced Mr. Dekker to the media as a courageous example of what a person can do if he sets his mind on it. The Baltimore-based federation said Mr. Dekker was the first blind person to make a solo trans-Pacific crossing.

A Baltimore-based advocacy group critical of the portrayal of a blind man on the ABC sitcom "Good & Evil" has called off plans to dump Lipton tea into New York harbor following an announcement by the beverage's parent company that it would no longer advertise on the show.But members of the National Federation of the Blind picketed outside the ABC offices in New York and Washington yesterday afternoon and last night in a continuation of a month-long effort to get the network to take the show off the air."

The National Federation of the Blind filed a complaint with state education officials yesterday alleging that blind children in Baltimore are graduating from public schools as functional illiterates because they are not being offered the proper training and technology at their schools. At a news conference at the national headquarters in South Baltimore, Denzel Ferges said he graduated in June from Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School but will need to get further training in Braille and technology to be able to continue his education and realize his goals of becoming a physical-education specialist and opening a recording studio.

When the National Federation of the Blind held its annual gala this year, it introduced its new name: The Cane Event. "The cane, which is the symbol of blindness, is a symbol of independence," NFB president Marc Maurer said. "A lot of people think if you become blind, your independence is gone. But we celebrate this event because this cane, in my hand, means I can go wherever I want to ... whenever I'd like to be there. And this is a symbol of the work we do in the National Federation of the Blind."

Target Corp. will revamp its Web site to make it more accessible for the blind and pay $6 million in damages to plaintiffs who joined a class action lawsuit against the retailer, under a settlement announced yesterday with the National Federation of the Blind. The $6 million will be placed in an interest-bearing account so that plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in California two years ago, can make claims. Most plaintiffs will get about $3,500, an NFB spokesman said. Under the settlement, the Baltimore-based NFB will test the Web site for three years and certify it once it is completely upgraded.

Not long ago, James Gashel was on Capitol Hill, waiting for a meeting to start, when he realized that he needed some numbers from a chart he was carrying. That was a problem. Gashel is blind, and so was his companion. And the chart was not in Braille. Gashel was reaching for his cell phone to call someone at his office to retrieve the numbers, when his colleague stopped him. "Why don't you try the reader?" he asked. Of course. Gashel, an executive at the National Federation for the Blind in Baltimore, was carrying the world's first hand-held reading machine for the blind - just developed by NFB in collaboration with Kurzweil Technologies Inc. of Wellesley, Mass.

RIIIING. IT'S the National Federation of the Blind of Oregon, calling across that state. They want money "to help the blind of the area," according to a fund-raising script from 2003. "This year we are working to make more reading materials accessible to the blind and to provide more help to blind seniors and blind children," says the telemarketer. "We were hoping you could help us with a donation of, say, $25 or so?" Helping blind children. What a great cause. You write the check. ("That would be wonderful!"

This was no mere groundbreaking being celebrated at the National Federation of the Blind's annual gala. This was also the celebration of a new facility that was groundbreaking itself. The NFB's new National Research and Training Institute for the Blind, to be built adjacent to the NFB's headquarters in Baltimore, will be the first education and research center developed and operated by an organization of the blind. About 600 guests gathered at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel to herald this new beginning and reflect on advances already made for the blind.

Asking college students to read the local newspaper every day doesn't sound like an unreasonable request. But for Meleah Jensen, it could have been. Jensen, 19, has lost much of her sight to glaucoma and can't read a newspaper. Nevertheless, the Louisiana State University sophomore kept up with her classmates when her world geography professor required students to read the newspaper in order to answer extra-credit questions on tests. "You'd miss some of those questions if you hadn't read the newspaper," said Jensen, who reads the morning paper in a slightly different fashion from her fellow students.

Newspapers and what's in them -- that was the theme at National Federation of the Blind's "Newsline Night 2000." Not only did the swanky soiree raise $66,000 for NFB's phone-based news service for the blind, but the night's headliner, MSNBC political analyst Frank Luntz, provided a fascinating and funny insider's take on this year's presidential race. Among the 270 guests entertained at NFB headquarters: Major F. Riddick Jr., honorary event chair; Sheldon Berman, Tim Frank, Frederick Muhl, Anne Riggle and Raymond Weiss Jr., event committee members; Dr. Marc Maurer, NFB president: Dr. Betsy Zaborowski, NFB director of special programs; James Gashel, NFB director of governmental affairs; Sharon Manecki, NFB of Maryland president; Curtis Chong, NFB Baltimore chapter president; Jim Brady, NFB Community Partnership board chair; Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr. and Robin Shaivitz, NFB Community Partnership board members; Dr. Fred Schroeder, U.S. commissioner of rehabilitation services; Michael Gisriel, Foard & Gisriel partner; Tony Read, Salomon Smith Barney senior vice president; George Mergler, Primo Electric service manager; Mel Smith, United Parcel Service chief operating officer; Jim Waldron, McCormick & Co. retired director of sales; Deane Blazie, Freedom Scien-tific vice president; Gail Stern, Whiteford, Taylor & Preston partner; Marcia Barr, Clark Commercial Real Estate principal; and Jill Hudock, DSG Inc. chief financial officer.

Flash! The newsies were out in force for "Newsline Night '99" at the National Federation of the Blind headquarters in South Baltimore.Katharine Graham of the Washington Post spoke to the black-tie bunch about her years in the news biz. And Mike Waller, publisher and CEO of The Baltimore Sun, and Tom Curley, publisher and president of USA Today, were each honored for their contributions to Newsline, the electronic telephone system that NFB uses to deliver more...

The National Federation of the Blind yesterday filed suit in U.S. District Court in Boston seeking to force Internet service giant American Online Inc. to upgrade its system so that blind users can have full access to its Internet site and programs.In its suit, the Baltimore-based NFB and nine blind Boston-area residents said AOL, the nation's largest Internet service provider with 19 million customers, violates the Americans With Disabilities Act by discriminating against the blind. Its system is incompatible with software designed to make the Internet accessible to blind users, the suit argues.