This is a weekly roundup of national and international news articles about Deaf individuals and Deaf-related events and concepts. The aim is to give a slightly Deaf perspective on the journalism and story. This week: Purple Communications, Ohio and the Deaf Jurist Situation, autocaptions on youtube, and ASL poetry nights in Brooklyn.

Another VRS provider has been asked to reimburse the government. Purple Communications was asked to reimburse the federal government for several million dollars worth of calls on February 19th and 25th after more than a year of exchanged communications. Both the government and Purple claim they have been trying to clarify Purple's business practices as well as specify types of reimburseable calls. The specified charges were mainly for calls members of the company made to each other as well as for a select list of other types of connected calls. Purple claims that if it has to repay these calls, it will become insolvent. Based on the fact that it has several hundred deaf or hard of hearing employees, and that the liquidation of the company could cause safety issues, it is asking for an immediate release of funds so it can continue to provide services. While we agree that steps need to be taken to prevent fraud, and that it's far too easy for companies to take advantage of an unmonitored system, we're not sure these are the best steps. Also, given that VRS calls made between company members would likely concern private company business, isn't it unfair to require service providers to use other service providers in the same business to transmit information? It would be akin to Microsoft giving Apple its top-secret programming and trusting them not to peek.

All of this comes on the heels of news that still more VRS providers have pleaded guilty to fraud - further reason for the government to tighten regulations. As company after company comes under charges of fraud, it becomes clear that any who remain untainted by this issue will gain control of a very large, and suddenly empty, playing field.

Meanwhile, a tragedy is occurring in Ohio, where the rights of Deaf Americans have come under attack in a very strange way. A judge has ruled that because a Deaf juror could not hear the exact tonal nuances in a victim's 911 call, they were not capable of making accurate judgements. As a result, they threw out the case. This is a tragedy of ignorance. It could easily be said that they should throw out every case decided by a hearing jury because hearing people are too susceptible to deception by smooth talkers! The truth is that both deaf and hearing jurors can share knowledge and provide valuable perspectives during a trial. A deaf person might read a transcript and notice something unusual in the concrete words, while a hearing person might listen to the tone of voice and hear something unusual. It is only a limited thinker who would say otherwise. (A reader responds: what if the government takes this too far and decides that, e.g., women can't be jurors in cases involving men because they won't understand the needs of testosterone?)

While it is exciting to see words appear on a screen where no words have appeared before, it's fair to say that Youtube's autocaptioning feature is still in its fetal stages. We found we could not choose the feature in several videos. On those we could choose, the captions and subtitles were so far off as to be ludicrously entertaining. We're glad Youtube and Google are working on it, but we do not echo the overly-excited cry of students at the California School for the Deaf (another kind of Eagle.) Autocaptions have potential, but right now can't be used - although the Deaf community is right to embrace this leap forward in technology. We'll be keeping our eye open for promised upgrades.

In continuing news from the previous week, Rhode Island School for the Deaf has announced it will be reassigning instead of firing teachers, and that the misunderstanding is because of an obscure rule that requires teachers to be notified of changes in status early in the year. State politicians want all teachers to be certified by content area, and the 35 teachers in question have a special certification focused on the needs of deaf and hard of hearing students. This certification has come under attack nationwide, as many deaf teachers scramble to obtain degrees and certification in other areas. It remains to be seen how it will reflect deaf education programs and the educational process for deaf children. This is on the heels of news of yet another deaf school in Utah being forced to make cuts - even as writers discuss the possible added-on, long term costs of closing such schools.

Of interest: open mike Deaf/ASL poetry nights in Brooklyn, New York have been receiving lots of attention. Take time to see the next show if you can!