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: the agreement between Purple and the FCC, telecom services for the Deafblind, more school closings loom, protests and city services in the UK and America, mainstreaming and poetry.

The "take" is different as bloggers report a range from "Purple and FCC kiss and make up" to "Purple is dead!" But the latest installment in the tale of government-supported VRS services is clear: Purple has 180 days to arrange payment of money to the FCC, and the FCC agreed to pay Purple for VRS calls so it can continue to operate. In addition, the FCC has maintained that its (recently clarified) rule about calls between members of a company are not reimburseable. The NAD issued a statement claiming concerns about restrictions on calls made by Americans out of the country and calls between members of a company, but it's less clear: the FCC is basically refusing to reimburse a company twice for such calls. They don't want to pay for the call as a business expense AS WELL as paying for the call itself from the TRS fund. It would be interesting to see a numerical breakdown of such costs, especially as concerns arise in the community that the NAD's statements are turning into thinly-veiled lobbying attempts (which might, of course, just be because of the sheer numbers of community members working in the VRS field!) Either way, things are looking up with the appointment of Karen Strauss to the FCC, called by the NAD a wonderful advocate for Deaf rights and author of a book on equal rights. The FCC is clearly trying to understand the needs of the Deaf community while struggling with complicated issues of reimbursement.

What about the rest of our community? John Lee Clark issues a fair comment on the fact that this VRS debacle still leaves the telecom needs of deaf-blind individuals untouched. While we don't agree with his entire comment - we think in this difficult economy, jobs could be formed by adding instead of trying to split services - we point out with interest that IBM is doing research on such accessibility.

Deaf school closings continue: the Jean Massieu Academy has been closed by order of the Texas government. It's one of three charter schools in Texas ordered to close, ostensibly because of poor testing performance (one of the reasons it exists in the first place!) The Academy is asking the state to reconsider the closing. If readers can report on this situation in the comments, it would be appreciated.

Going too far? Deaf protestors in the UK stop traffic to protest government cuts on deaf services. Some commenters feel their protest wasn't worth while - but perhaps they have merely to look the next county over, where police are now taking sensitivity training on dealing with Deaf community members. We like what Nadia Saba, Head of Diversity at Avon and Somerset Police said in the article: "We are aiming for this to be a multi-agency event, with partners from the Councils, other emergency services and members of the police community and Deaf/deafened/late deafened people so that the decisions that organisations make are shaped by real-life experiences." Similar progress is being made in America; the Brownsville Herald reports that police agencies are being trained in limited sign language. This can't replace a qualified interpreter - but it might just result in Deaf lives being spared and safe. Also cool: British police forces are distributing crime prevention videos made in BSL.

Mainstreaming: not always fun. This deaf kid was educated in a closet- symbolic of the fears in the Deaf community that mainstreaming education can isolate and affect Deaf children.

Of Interest: Whoa, Oregon! Not only is Tiffany Hill of Salem the Oregon winning champion poet of Oregon's 2009 Poetry Out Loud competition - the board of judges is enlightened enough to include an ASL interpreter. Oregon School for the Deaf students participated again this year. This is proof that, even while residents at a Deaf school, Deaf children are hardly isolated.