Grant Laird, Jr. Blog

ASL Video - Approx 4:00 Minutes Long

Grant talked about his friend name Tom Caiazzo who ran for congressman in Texas District #3 during year 2001. (in vlog, he said 2000 - it should be 2001) Tom approached him thru DeafNetwork.com website and invited Grant to be part of his Caiazzo for Congress campaign committee. In long run, Tom did not win election — he lost to many years re-elected Republican Congressman Sam Johnson.

How did he have interested in deaf community first place? He has a deaf brother and he knew some sign language. We did have campaign booth during Deaf Celebration 2001 (click here to see picture) and it went very well. Grant’s responsibility is to get more deaf and hard of hearing to get involved and of course, to vote for him.

Early this year, Tom told him that he wrote a book about his experience with running for congressman. He told Grant that he was mentioned in his book. He ordered a book and got it today. It was so goose-bump that Tom still remembers him back then.

To learn about his recent book called Politics of Hope: A Failed Strategy - Click here.

It is amazing experience, indeed. What about you guys?

Grant W Laird Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com

Vote Today (11/07/06)

Ever since I registered, I’ve done my part by vote frequently over years. I never forget that I actually vote for Ross Perot who tried to run for US President years ago. I still think he would make a hell of good president.

Anyway, I remember my father always talked about political stuff when I was young. It is healthy and fun to discuss this stuff regularly but what’s interesting about it – my dad never actually vote or even register at all.

What’s the deal? I may never know why.

Closed Captioning on Political Commercial TV

I definitely don’t understand why majority of campaign commercial do not offer captions at all. I know I wasn’t paying attention to TV commercials much these days because I almost always use Digital Video Recorder (DVR) which allows me to skip all commercials. However, many of those videos also on website and again, it don’t offer caption or even transcript.

Do they really care about our deaf community?

Governor Perry

Congratulation, Governor Perry won the election. I am not big fan of Perry however I was always been mixed of Republican and Democrats personally. Hmmm

Sigh.

Ever since Hurricane Katrina hit Gulf coast hardest last year, it impacted so many things – you hear about it all the times on TV, news online and other things.

According to Anderson Cooper 360 Blog, Did Katrina evacuees bring more crime to Houston?

Even they are being careful what they said (political reason) on the article but you will see plenty of people’s comments that it do cause criminal up since Katrina evacuee came into picture. I really don’t think it is one side thing – it takes both side to cause all kind of problems.

City of Gretna (Near New Orleans) did smart thing by block the bridge to keep Katrina evacuees coming in. Sure, they got heated up for doing it but did they do right thing? You can read more stories about it here.

It is very much unfortunately. I can feel their pains because I definitely wouldn’t want to see criminal goes up in my area (Dallas) too. Even it’s not that far from New Orleans or Houston. It’s only five hours drive. They believe that it does affect many another cities such as Dallas, Austin, etc but I didn’t see a lot of headline about it lately.

Personally, I met a gentleman who happens to be my interpreter one time while ago. He is one of those Katrina evacuees and he told me about it. He lost his house and everything. He had to start over like getting new car, new clothes, computer etc.

He acknowledged that Dallas is so different than New Orleans. He and his elderly parent live together in apartment complex for time being. He already got part time job fast. He’s lucky that interpreter is high demands in here. (And elsewhere, I am sure)

Amazing. Sigh.

Grant W Laird Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com