Grant Laird, Jr. Blog

Ralph H. White
1923 - 2006

A Memorial Service celebrating the life of Ralph H. White will be held on Saturday, March 4, 2006 , 2 PM at the Congress Avenue Baptist Church in Austin , Texas . A reception will immediately follow the service in the church Fellowship Hall.

Congress Avenue Baptist Church
1511 South Congress Ave.
Austin, TX 78704
(512) 447-7781 (voice)
(512) 447-7653 (Video Phone)
(512) 447-7788 (Fax)
http://www.congressavenuebc.org

In lieu of flowers, Ralph requested that donations be made to the Deaf Seniors of America (DSA), a non-profit organization that he helped to establish in 1992. The mission of the DSA is to improve the quality of life for senior citizens who are deaf.

Donations may be sent to :
Deaf Seniors of America
Attention: Joseph S. Rose, Treasurer
3013 Fallston Avenue
Silver Spring , MD 20904-1805
(301) 572 4478
http://www.deafseniors.com

A website honoring Ralph is being designed by his son-in-law, John Vystrcil and his grandson, Scott Vystrcil. Please visit http://www.ralphwhite.net around February 27, 2006 and share your memories and condolences with his family. Thank you for your love and your prayers.

From Ralph’s family.

1978
Thirty-fourth national convention held in Rochester, New York. Ralph White elected President. The NAD undertakes effort to have sign language taught in public schools and accepted as a second language requirement in high school and post-secondary institutions. The NAD granted Bernard Bragg $2,000 for a world tour as an advocate for deaf persons’ sign language and the involvement of deaf people in theatre. Branch office opened in Indianapolis. Jackie Roth crowned Miss Deaf America. Federal Communications Commission adopted a rule requiring television licensees to transmit emergency messages in a visual format.

http://www.nad.org/site/pp.asp?c=foINKQMBF&b=1060975 

We lost one of the greatest Deaf Texas leaders. His name is Ralph H. White — I’ve know him for few years before he passed away. I also knew two of his adult daughters. They are wonderful people.

When I first meet him — probably in 1999 when I become board of director for Texas Association of the Deaf. (TAD) On same weekend, we had to clean out TAD office in CSD building in Austin because CSD decide not to fund TAD any more for some reason. (I can’t remember - long time ago)

All elected officers including myself had to put up all stuff (computer, desk, printer, paperworks, photography, etc.) in our vehicles last minutes even I am from Dallas. That was last day Ralph work as executive director (part-time) for TAD.

I had opportunity to know him better and talk to him from time to time over years. Of course, I never really knew his background till I saw his background at GSDAA website — it has his background information. He has done very well in his life.

He also emailed me personally few years ago how much he enjoyed Deaf Network of Texas mailing list.

We will remember him forever.

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

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Over years, my wife and I always looked for any “Christmas” greeting cards such as “Season’s greeting” or “Happy Holidays”. True enough, they are making big deal out of it everywhere right now.

According to Newsleader.com article, “Christmas” is definitely related to church things – no wonder many people critique me for saying “Merry Xmas”. (Nothing serious really)

What does "Merry Christmas" really mean? The Random House Collegiate Dictionary defines "merry" as gaiety, happiness, joyous, happy, cheery and on and on! The definition of Christmas is: the annual festival of the Christian church commemorating the birth of Jesus.

"Happy Holidays" (politically correct choice.) "Happy" is defined as delighted, pleased or glad, "Holiday" as any day fixed by law or custom on which ordinary business is suspended in commemoration of some event or person. A careful look at the definition of those four words, appear to me, have the same almost identical meaning. Which poses another question: What is the problem?

Which one would you prefer to say and give full respect for others?

To read full article: Click here.

Happy Holiday and Happy New Years!

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

In case you forget, it is not too late to write letter to FCC. Click here to go FCC website where you can submit the letter — it can be short / sweet or long one. To understand better what it is all about - See NAD comment on Quality of Closed Captioning

The deadline is december 16, 2005. This is my letter to FCC.

December 14, 2005
FCC Docket 05-231

I am writing as a deaf consumer who supports quality closed captioning during live and pre-recorded TV broadcasting. I am one of the people that saw very first closed captioning when I was little boy. It opened world to me. Big time.

Today, it is nothing but frustrating to find programs on TV with no captions, to try and decipher poor quality or garbled captions, to have captions disappear minutes before the program ends, and to have captions block text information that is a part of the program.

I realized that there’s so much involved in it like add-on hardware, (DVD, TIVO, Cable, DVR, etc) news/weather alert message and things like that can be factor for poor and/or conflict on captioning itself. It is time for TV Broadcasters to step up and work close with equipment maker and other services to improve its quality in long run.

The FCC should establish quality monitor on all shows regardless. It is still TV Broadcasters’ responsibility to do it right first time. But if they did not, consumer should have easy to reach FCC and/or TV Broadcasters – maybe we can set up dedicated website for it.

I can’t image what our life is like without FCC from beginning since we established closed captioning 25 years ago. Also, we are going show good example to another countries that we mean it seriously and they can follow our example.

Once closed captioning quality policy passed, we can use it for all different medium media such as video online, radio, and mobile, to name many things. My point is that we shouldn’t focus just for TV but it should impact everything around us.

We American are confident the FCC will consider these comments from the deaf and hard of hearing community and publish rules that will elevate closed captioning to a standard that is substantially equivalent to the audio portion of a TV program and beyond.

I want to thank you for this opportunity to provide my input as a TV viewer. Please support the original petition filed by the NAD, TDI, SHHH, DHHCAN, and ALDA.

Grant W Laird, Jr.
Crazy Technologies LLC
http://www.crazytech.com

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