When Longinus Asked…

This morning

I wrote “I know”

When Longinus asked—

What are we to say

of inquiries and questions?

Of pleading eyes

And voiceless inquiries

He said nothing.

Perhaps he tried

But there’s a lacuna

Equivalent

To about five pages.

National Federation of the Blind Launches Ridesharing Testing Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Chris Danielsen

Director of Public Relations

National Federation of the Blind

(410) 659-9314, extension 2330

(410) 262-1281 (Cell)

cdanielsen@nfb.org

National Federation of the Blind Launches Ridesharing Testing Program

Organization to Monitor Uber, Lyft Efforts to Accommodate Service Animals

Baltimore, Maryland (May 8, 2017): The National Federation of the Blind today announced the launch of a program to test the effectiveness of ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft’s efforts to accommodate passengers with guide dogs and other service animals. The NFB seeks the participation of blind people and other service animal users, or those who travel with them, across the United States and in Puerto Rico. Volunteers will be asked to fill out an online questionnaire to indicate whether or not they were denied service because of their service animals or if they were treated in a discriminatory or disrespectful manner. Both positive and negative experiences should be reported. Pursuant to agreements with the National Federation of the Blind, both Uber and Lyft are taking steps to prevent discrimination against, and improve service to, riders with service animals. The agreements require the National Federation of the Blind to provide feedback to the companies over a three-to-five-year period. The program is open to both members and non-members of the National Federation of the Blind. The online questionnaire is available in both English and Spanish.

Mark A. Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Companies like Uber and Lyft are empowering blind people to live the lives we want by providing fast, convenient and affordable transportation. This empowerment can only be real and complete, however, if all blind people, including those who use guide dogs, are able to access these transportation options when and where they need them, without fear that they will be refused service. My wife Melissa uses a guide dog, and consequently our family has occasionally experienced the refusal of transportation services, which violates the legal and civil rights of the blind and other people with disabilities. The National Federation of the Blind applauds the commitment by Uber and Lyft to improve their service to service animal users, and we look forward to working with these companies to ensure that their efforts to do so are meaningful and effective. I urge all service animal users to use our new online questionnaire often so that we can provide comprehensive feedback throughout the terms of our agreements with Uber and Lyft.”

For more information about the program and to access the online questionnaire, please visit www.nfb.org/rideshare.

###

The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.

For more information about the National Federation of the Blind, please visit: www.nfb.org

I’ve studied philosophers…

I’ve studied philosophers, exegesis, codicils of soul,

Some of their ideas like arrows in flesh

Though (tastefully) the arrows can’t be seen

Sometimes I look up from a book

And say: “Death by monads…”

Just a joke between my softly burning

Hands, hearts, eyes

Whatever you wish to call the mind

At twilight I ski sometimes

Down to the shore

Where now

They’re building houses

For the rich—dark blocks

Surrounded

By machines

Windows empty

Lightless

Heraclitus looking out….

I tried all afternoon…

I tried all afternoon

To translate a poem

Something about a silver toothpick

And a gathering

Of metaphysicians

All of this so long ago

When shadows were thought

To have certain qualities

Of the soul—

There was no idle talk

In all of Greece.

Beside me

A rose

In a glass beaker

And a cold cup

Of Russian tea.

A shadow falls over your hands

Late at night

As the meal ends.

On the edge of death

One thinks

Of teeth.

The poetry of earth is never dead…

I mourn for the one who used to be me—

He was pacified with cold water

A dictionary

Understood

In aggregate

Like the worms

He found

Inside a thistle.

Orphan

Morning, April, maples heavy with rain—

And before life has begun one thinks,

How a customary human mind starts up

Cold, still dark.

Last night I recalled

John Butler Yeats, the poet’s father,

A famous talker, a one man college,

Who taught his son to listen.

I wonder

Who taught me

About life after life?

Come Back to the Five and Dime Walter Benjamin

Blind and crusing the aisles of convenience stores I pick up objects and press them close to my face. In a Costco store I was recently followed by the house dick who imagined, because I had a guide dog, that I’d no idea he was just ten feet behind me. I picked up random mercantile junk, a tin model of the Empire State building, and I sniffed it. The shamus was aghast but he didn’t make a move. How does one properly say “I felt his admixture of outrage and perplexity?” That’s of course a disability sentence.

In such instances one realizes fully that the semiotics of saleable junk is febrile and immediate. You’re not supposed to examine anything. What after all is a blind examination but a repudiation, a refusal to shop impulsively?