Prayers for H1N1 Flu Victims; Can you read lips covered by face masks?

UPDATE: the word “swine” is being dropped for a more preferable term, H1N1 flu. See this report. It’s only logical since it’s not a food-borne illness and you don’t get the flu from eating pork.

So far, over 150 people died from swine H1N1 flu and there may be more to come out of this swine flu pandemic eventually. From this point, we should all say a prayer to the swine H1N1 flu victims as more people are suffering and dying unexpectedly from it, especially in the more severe cases. Your relatives, your friends, someone you know by association, and all other people will be affected by this. All we truly needed are prayer, courage and hope to get through this difficult time and to help others. Fear is a powerful manifesting emotion within us, as uncertainty and confusion gradually creep into our minds, the greatest of all is the fear of the unknown. Insofar, the media isn’t making a fear-engulfing issue out of this and that’s a good thing. People are hopefully that the outbreak would be contained thoroughly, expectations from the governments and health organizations to deal with this pandemic are extremely high. Any slip-up would mean serious repercussions and people would take matters into their own hands.

That being said, CDC think we’re in a pre-pandemic phase. This is a reasonable presumption, as we haven’t seen the extents of a fast-spreading pandemic all over, like hospitals being overwhelmed and crowded with sick people needing assistance, police/military patrolling about and enforcing curfews, stores and public events closed, etc. in America. These things are already happening in Mexico but not yet, insofar, in the US.

It would be a serious blow to the U.S. economy already reeling with unemployment, lay-offs, companies losing money and so forth, the specter of a major economic collapse is around the corner. A very bad thing.

All you needed are prayer for the victims, courage for yourself, hope for your loved ones and friends, and help everyone to get through this difficult time. The Golden Rule always applies in any case.

Can you read lips covered by face masks?

To DeafReaders, as you will notice that more people are buying and using face masks to protect themselves from the flu. If communication is important to you by understanding what hearing people are saying to you during a crisis event, immediately let them know you’re deaf, since you cannot understand or read lips from people wearing face masks while talking. If necessary, have a small notepad and a pen with you in handy when you’re out and about. Some hearing people may be reluctant to remove face masks as you would wanted to understand what they’re saying to you, so keep that in mind.

Also, in the event of national emergency (i.e. martial law), if you’re out in public, not aware of curfew restrictions in some places, and there is police/military patrolling about, seeing YOU, do not do anything stupid or make sudden move as if you’re trying to indicate to them you’re deaf. Frankly, it is preferable for you to be quiet, be still, have your hands up and be arrested on the spot than be shot first and questions asked later. The police/military are very strict with their orders in a national emergency and they would not take any chance with you regardless of any indication that you’re deaf. They don’t know and don’t care who you are and what you are. In a nutshell: shut up, be still, hands up and follow their cues to be arrested on the spot. It is for your own and their safety, even though you haven’t done anything wrong.

Eventually, the police/military would find out that you are really deaf and you may have not know about curfew restrictions in some places if these were recently communicated over the radio, TV or the Internet. Curfew restrictions can be made on the fly without a warning in some cases. The police/military would probably escort you home (or a jail center or a FEMA camp) for your own safety.

If I were you, I would go out and buy a box of high-filtration maximum protection face masks right away. I already did some months ago.

DeafReaders Politically Ignorant or Don’t Care? A Poll

Given the disappointing lack of responses and interest from DeafReaders (and Deaf Village readers) over my blog or DCRepublicans blog on the particular subjects with politics, the stimulus package bill and the U.S. economy. Mike of DCR and I have come to a conclusion that the majority of the Deaf/deaf/HoH community may be either politically ignorant or don’t really care about these subjects. My money’s on the latter than the former (I’m riding on it, baby!).

So, I am curious about you all. Click on this poll below to express your real understanding/knowledge about American politics and the economy. Thank you!

Have To Be Deaf-Related Blogs Only Or What?

Just read up Paotie’s hilarious and snarky post about his slamming comment on DBC and the negative reactions he attracted. He took issue with DeafRead’s neutrality issue and the ambiguous sentiments of the human editors, possibly reacting to the fallout from John Egbert’s ill-conceived and foolish proposal to DeafRead editors to root out “deficit thinkers” (read: bloggers and posters who doesn’t toe the collective thinking line on all deaf-related issues) from DeafRead. Paotie is under the impression that all or some of the DeafRead editors aren’t really neutral when it comes to certain subjects they may disagree or feel really uncomfortable with coming from few “rabble-rousing” deaf/hoh bloggers. Jared Evan insisted to Paotie that the DeafRead editors are solid on the neutrality policy, aptly re-stated by Taylor Mayer. Though, the above issue is not the point of this blog…

Chewing over the DeafRead guideline to get the gist of the matter, I pondered if the entire purpose of DeafRead is to aggregate blogs that have deaf-related issues or that have buzz words associated with deafness or deaf-related issues for the deaf/hoh community and its supportive parties (CODA, hearies who love the deaf/ASL) and NOT to aggregate blogs from deaf/hoh bloggers who did not adhere to the required DeafRead criteria? Obviously, as I have seen for the past year or so, DeafRead have aggregated many blogs that covered a whole range of deaf-related subjects, ASL and issues pertaining to deaf communities thereabout, including a great number of unrelated blogs coming from the deaf/hoh bloggers, like some of my old blogs and among others. And yet, the implication from the DeafRead guideline suggested that it must be, first and foremost, the aggregator of only deaf-related blogs, with only subjects that must pertain to deaf-related issues as clearly expressed in rule no. 1: deaf-related posts.

In a nutshell: you may blog about any deaf-related subject whether you’re deaf, hard-of-hearing or hearing and get your blog aggregated on DeafRead to be read by all from the deaf community on the Internet. Blogs not related to deaf issues, too bad.

Frankly, that very issue concerned me a bit. I am a deaf blogger. I know a good number of deaf issues and have touched on few important deaf-related subjects before but I am not the only deaf blogger around and I am not able to touch on subjects too numerous, too complex and too mind-boggling for me to blog for the deaf community. If I do, I wouldn’t have a life and somebody would have pry my cold dead hands from the keyboards and declare my sad demise as “death by blogging”. Having said that, there are a lot of deaf bloggers (and vloggers) out there who can touch on subjects that I’m neither qualified nor knowledgeable about and certainly not all of their subjects should have to be deaf-related. I am a blogger who happened to be deaf and I do know some subjects very well that have nothing to do with deaf issues.

The point I’m trying to say is that deaf people can blog about anything. Deaf people are not isolated creatures holed up in their rooms, away from every subject or information or not able to learn anything. They are capable of demonstrating their knowledges on subject-matters by blogging/vlogging about them and they are intellectually enough to opine on anything/anyone or about anything/anyone at all, including some tough, difficult or very sensitive subjects they know well or familiar with. Without doubt, deaf people can do anything like hearing people do: being knowledgeable about something and share their perspective, commentary, feeling or opinion with everyone who can read (or, at least, watch the vlogs) on the Internet. They can blog about the current Election 2008 politics, the war on terror, sky-high oil prices, Britney Spears, the WGA strike, global warming, top-selling books, captioned movies, Ron Paul, foods, life and so on. Anything.

And it does not necessarily have to be any deaf-related issue just because the bloggers are deaf or hard-of-hearing. It does not necessarily mean that all deaf/hoh bloggers and vloggers must adhere strictly to DeafRead’s rule no. 1 if they wish to have their blogs aggregated and published on DeafRead. I would suggest a little clarification to that rule, DR editors. It wouldn’t be a spot of bother, eh?

So, to all deaf/hoh bloggers, blog away. Showcase your knowledge about something other than a deaf-related subject. Show us what you have learn and understand from out there. Show us what you have found and reveal from the Internet. Show us what you wanted to say something about something or someone. Show us your passion and your intelligence. The audience awaits!

Off-topic Brief no. 1: Really liked what I see from NBC tonight: The Celebrity Apprentice. Poor but not-so-bright hottie from Playboy got fired by the Donald. Though, I really dig his hottie daughter. Anyone got her email address?

Off-topic Brief no. 2: Obama won the Democratic caucus while Huckabee swept the Republican caucus tonight in Iowa. Historically, candidates of both parties who won the Iowa caucus did not always win the Presidential nominations for the White House. Hillary Clinton have a much stronger chance of winning the election by November and I can say that’s pretty much a guarantee, even though I’m a republican.

Off-topic Brief no. 3: Global cooling is here. Back in 2004, I already knew that. Global warming is, like, so yesterday.