Friday, April 18, 2008

The RETURN of Sherlock and Defending Berke

G'day Everyone!

I'm sure my enemies have been praying and rumoring that I've died while I've been sick lately. Unfortunately, I'm going to disappoint them all and tell them: NICE TRY BUT NO DICE!

Being sick is no fun. Being sick with a dangerous cold? Absolutely NO FUN! How about being sick, laying in bed, and refusing to go to the hospital? You might say it was faith! Faith it was.

So now, I'm back.. and ANGRY!

I recently got alerted to Robert Mason's post about his rant on Jamie Berke and the CIs.
First, I'm going to say this: Not ever CI devices will allow a deaf person to hear on the phone like a normal person. Some CIs are still using the older models that don't allow the phone to be used, but hear just like everyone else. RLM, CIs are improving every year. Eventually, a CI device just might be able to allow deaf people to use the phones like everyone else has a built in telecoil in their hearing aids.

Second: RLM, I am ashamed of you of attacking Jamie Berke. It's like you attacking the entire CI people itself. You should be attacking parents who are putting CIs on the defenseless deaf babies and attacking AGBell for promoting the CI and not allowing CI users to learn ASL. THINK ABOUT IT!

Third: CIs, like hearing aids, are medical devices. They're designed to help a deaf person to hear. If you want to call CI "luxury items", then wouldn't hearing aids also fall into "luxury items" too? I don't think so. If hearing aids can help a deaf person to hear, then so can CIs.

Fourth: Not every health insurance and medicare would pay for such devices. It's debated on a case by case basis. But how did Jamie afford for it? I'm not going to ask. It's not our business to know. She's got CI. She got it so that she could do her job. To be able to communicate with hearing people and hear everyday sounds. Thats' her own PPOV (Personal point of view).
Jamie wanted the CI. She read on the Pros and cons about it. She understood the risks of it. She went for it, even if she surprised everyone else close to her.

Fifth: RLM, Lay off on Jamie's deafness.about.com stuff. If she wants to change it's title, she can ask her managers at About.com for a new title. Its her professional work with the deaf community.

If you got a problem with Jamie Berke, you ought to be personally talking to her in a e-mail-to-email way. But attacking her in a blog? You are just putting yourself into a position of being dragged into court and answering a variety of charges and being forced to answer for it.

This isn't any fun, RLM. Jamie's being serious. I'm defending her as her friend and fellow blogger.

I'm done defending for now. I'm back in my blog seat and getting healthy again. I missed a lot of good stuff. I would say that if I had a wish for where this 2 week flu would go, I have a pretty good idea where it should go.

So hats off to you, Jamie. I'm proud you got your CI!!

Semper FI!

update: Jamie Berke just posted this on her blog: http://berkeoutspoken.blogspot.com/2008/04/cease-and-desist-letter-to-robert-mason.html

I support her Cease and Desist message to Robert Mason. RLM, you better be listening because Sherlock supports Jamie!
SEMPER FI!

2 comments:

Jim said...

Welcome back, Sherlock. I would like to join to support Jamie. What she did and decided about CI is her own decision. There was no force but she chose to do it for her own personal reasons that it is no body else to know but herself. She did explain in one of her blog why she choose to get a CI. There is nothing wrong with her decision. I hope others leave Jamie alone about her CI and her website. Nobody gets a vote on what she is doing as all that is within her rights to do so because she did not break any laws or doing anything illegal.

Valerie said...

Amen!

Good to see you back. You have been missed.
Valerie