Dread Tamales

My friend Pascal and I were in the fifth grade together, back when there were no computers, no e-mails, no music videos.  Imagine.  Or remember.  Whichever.  These days Pascal and I attach music videos to e-mails we exchange on the internet.  Before Christmas, he sent me a YouTube from Gounod’s opera Faust.  Pascal and I have been planning to attend the encore showing at the North I-85 Regal Hollywood 24 of the Met Live in HD production.  I e-mailed Pascal a link to Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard singing Pancho and Lefty. 

"All the Federales say

They could have had him any day."

Did they say, “dread tamales?”   Sometimes, due to my hearing loss and subsequent cochlear implant, everything sounds to me like Alvin and the Chipmunks announcing the subway stops at the Atlanta airport.  I wished I could have heard Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard even that well, but it made me happy just to watch these two old geezers, both great artists, and remember their beautiful voices.

On Christmas day, my wife Annette and I visited daughter Heidi and her husband Buke and children Ava and Evan in Camp Hill, Ala., near Auburn.  We were invited to Christmas brunch with Heidi’s in-laws.  Deafness is as much a social problem for me as it is a disability.  I try to head off at the pass the usual discomfort and embarrassment by describing why I do not hear or understand a word anybody says in group conversations.  I mention Alvin and the Chipmunks and describe the hardware and electronics of my cochlear implant to exceed anybody’s interest.  I say that my cochlear implant is a medical miracle but technologically inferior to any $40 cell phone at Wal-Mart.  For good measure, I explain my difficulty in distinguishing the difference between social conversation and rumbling from the dishwasher. Heidi’s father-in-law Chester, a retired professor of electrical engineering, is listed on the internet as a certified founding father of computer electronics, holder of patents, and plaintiff in lawsuits against giant corporate infringers.   Heidi’s father-in-law volunteers, “You need a noise filter.”

That is what I’ve been trying to tell the cochlear implant professionals for five years.  They know more about the practice of medicine and collection of insurance payments than I do, but I have seen no evidence they know as much about audio electronics as an AT&T telephone technician or anybody sitting behind a mixing board at a Nashville recording studio.  I told Chester I had worked in telecommunications for three decades, because the army made me a radio teletype operator.  He said, “I want to show you something.”  He left the room for a few minutes and returned with his graduation certificate from the U.S. Army Southeastern Signal Corps School, Camp Gordon, Ga., named Ft. Gordon by the time I also became an alumnus.  Later that afternoon, as I sat snoring in an easy chair back at Heidi's house, Chester came by with a pair of earmuff headphones for listening to things on the computer.  He suggested that I cup them over my cochlear implant earpiece for their strong noise filtering capability.  My first try at this was encouraging, so I bought a $24.95 GE computer headset with adjustable volume control, telephone adapters included.

Pancho and Lefty has never been a song that meant much to me, although Emmy Lou Harris sang it like an angel, and the Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard duet turned it into a number one hit.  The song was written by Townes Van Zandt with minor chords and haunting rhymes and reasons, as happens when you just can’t help it and the fever takes hold.  I rang in the New Year 2012 listening to Faust through my new headset, and I enjoyed it so much I gave the Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard YouTube another try.  I heard Merle Haggard clearly enough dedicate Pancho and Lefty  “to all the folks out there who make their livings on the road like we do.  All the drivers.  All the musicians….”  I played the Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard music video so many times I forgot to count.  Again and again, the old geezer trio, sang:

“Living on the road, my friend, was gonna keep you free and clean.

Now you wear your skin like iron, breath as hard as kerosene...."

Cochlear Implant Studies

Two studies of Cochlear Implant experiences have invited me to participate, and I have been delighted to do so. Why not? When I lost 100 percent of my hearing in both ears five years ago, there was not anywhere near enough Cochlear Implant information available to keep me from feeling like I was jumping off a cliff blindfolded. Now, a Cochlear Implant, an electronic device provides me bionic hearing, a miracle but far from perfect.

The University of Iowa is conducting a research and training program concentrating on music perception for those of us with Cochlear Implants. Personally, this is a very important issue for me, because listening to music has always contributed so much to the quality of my life. After first receiving my Cochlear Implant, music was particularly frustrating, just a jumble of noise. Now I am able to distinguish enough of the various aspects of music to experience something I can honestly call enjoyment again.

For further information clink on this link:

http://www.cimusicresearch.com/

or e-mail

virginia-driscoll@uiowa.edu

The other study I have participated in is a Cochlear Implant and BAHA Online Survey from Juniper Consulting Group,a medical market research company. Their current project is trying to identify areas for improvement of cochlear implants or bone
anchored hearing implants.

This online survey take approximately 30-40 minutes to complete. It asks for your level of satisfaction about Cochlear Implant and BAHA issues, including medical support, training, and hardware. Compensation of $100 is offered. The only requirements to start the survey are you must be a recipient of a cochlear implant or a BAHA and be over the age of 18.

> Email: cbess@junicon.net for a link to the survey.

Cochlear Bone Connected to the Cell Phone

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones.

Anniversary after anniversary since my miraculous Cochlear Implant surgery, I’ve been trying to find a way to connect my CI personal audio cable to my cell phone. When I try to listen to a CD or tape via my direct connect audio cable, what I hear is my best experience with sound, because the signal is clean, unpolluted electronics, without any airborne sound waves bouncing around or mixing in background noise. I considered cutting and splicing cables but was afraid I might make a mistake and ruin my CI personal audio cable, which listed for $130 in the catalog that came with my implant four years ago, back when I had a job, insurance coverage, and lawyers at Let them Hear Foundation barking and biting on my behalf, because the insurance company excluded anything that would fix hearing loss.

My old cell phone provides a 2.5mm headset jack; the connector of my CI personal audio cable jack is 3.5mm, standard for portable audio products like CD and tape players, as well as radios. I bought a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter plug at Radio Shack. Great fit. No sound. I got in touch with a guy at T-Mobile, where I used to work, and discussed this with him. He explained that an adapter was a waste of time and money, because the mismatch is more than just the matter of size. Anyway, he says the problem has pretty much gone out of date, as of the last year or so. He said the 3.5mm connector used by audio products like portable cd players and other popular demand electronics is now commonly provided as the output jack for the newer cell phones.

"Put your old cell phone in your closet, behind the polyester leisure-suits," he said.

We immediately tested my 3.5mm direct connect personal audio cable for my Cochlear Implant hearing device with his new cell phone, a Nokia 5230 Nuron. Double thumbs up. It worked like a champ. T-Mobile sells the Nokia 5230 Nuron for $149, not including service plan. A contract plan will always get you a discount on any new phone. I talked to the Nokia factory, and according to them, the following Nokia models also use 3.5mm connector jacks: N8, N97 Mini, X6, E72, 5730, E5, and 5530. Then I checked with AT&T, and the same was true with many of their newer phones from various manufacturers. The AT&T list: HTC Surround, LG Encore, LG Incite CT810, LG Neon II, LG Prime GS390, LP Quantum, Motorola Backflip, Motorola Bravo, Motorola EM330/EM28, Motorola Flipout, Motorola Flipside, Motorola Karma QA1.

I hunted for a bargain and found an AT&T Go Phone packet at Walmart for $79, a Nokia C3 smartphone with QWERTY keyboard and $30 credit balance to open the account. I picked the pre-paid plan that charges $2 per day of use, only on the days you actually use it, and includes unlimited calls and texts. So if I use it only one day a month, it costs me only $2, even if I talk for hours, five days during the month, $10. Read the fine print, of course. The Nokia C3 is a Smartphone, smarter than me. As I explored the touch screen icons, I unintentionally nickel and dimed my free start-up balance of $30 down to $27.47. Internet whistles and bells all cost extra. Nonetheless, I made basic cell phone voice calls and texting tests the rest of the afternoon with no further charges.

Check out the specifications on the C3 at http://www.nokiausa.com/find-products/phones/nokia-c3/specifications . This is the critical information: 3.5 mm stereo headphone plug. Even the vendors get confused about 2.5mm plugs, 3.5mm plugs, headphones, headsets, hearing aid compatible, and often can not tell one from the other.

Here is a very useful website where you can search by vendor, type of phone, 3.5mm jack, etc. It is called Phonescoop at http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/finder_results.php?car=0&avr=r&av_2=y&f73r=r

Phonescoop listed these cellphones with 3.5mm jacks:

Alltel/Sprint -- Apple iPhone 3GS, Apple iPhone 4.
AT&T – HP Ipaq Glisten, HP Palm Pixi / Pixi PLUS (CDMA), HP Palm Pixi Plus (GSM), HP Palm Pre Plus (GSM), HP Palm Treo Pro (CDMA), HCT Aria.
Sprint – HTC Desire (CDMA).
Sprint/Verizon -- HTC Droid Incredible.
T-Mobile – HTC EVO 4G, HTC G2, HTC HD2, HTC HD7, HTC Hero (CDMA), HTC Imagio.
U.S. Cellular – HTC myTouch 3G/Magic.
Verizon – HTC myTouch 3G Slide, HTC myTouch 4G.

Virtual Silence

I logged on to whitehouse.gov for President Obama’s virtual Town Hall Meeting, only to discover the video feed was not captioned. My cochlear implant, a miracle but far from perfect, makes me a member of the statistical 10 percent of the population which is hearing disabled. Thanks for network television. How can I utter such an absurdity? Life is full of contradictions and puzzlements. Congress required commercial television to provide captions. Thanks for Congress. Another two-edged utterance. Most new movies for rent at Blockbuster and Hollywood Videos are captioned. A limited few shopping mall movie houses offer captioned showings. Last week, my wife and I enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire, Oscar winner for best film, during lunchtime on Sunday at Atlantic Station. It has been a while since we went to a theatre to see a movie that was not a foreign language film with English subtitles. Check out my blog NOW SHOWING…With Captions, which I update weekly with times and locations of local movies captioned for the hearing impaired. Would you want to see those movie selections at those times of day? Worse is the situation with videos on the internet, virtually never carrying any captions.

The behind the ear processor of my cochlear implant can be connected directly to the audio of my television set, cassette tape or cd player, and some landline telephones. However, I am not able to hook up to my cell phone. I have to turn on the speaker-phone feature, and my guess is not as good as yours as to what the person is saying on the other end of the phone call. I wanted to get one of those little portable, battery operated televisions for picnics and other outdoor fun. However, the requirement to make televisions capable of displaying captions does not apply to screens smaller than 13 inches. My universal television remote contains 45 buttons in black, gray, orange, red, green, yellow, and blue. None of them will turn on the captions.

Many federal laws have been enacted over the past 20 years to require greater access to telecommunications. However, fast-paced technological advancements outrun the laws. Television programs re-shown on the Internet are not covered by caption requirements, even if originally broadcast with captions. Small TVs, cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices are not required to display captions, despite the technical capability. Emergency 9-1-1 call centers cannot accept calls from people who need to communicate via video, pagers or other assistive devices.

A 21st Century Telecommunications and Video Accessibility Act, introduced in the last session of Congress, would correct some of these exclusions from modern media. I signed petition by The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) to have the bill reintroduced in the current session of Congress and ensure that people with disabilities have access to evolving high speed broadband, wireless, and other Internet-based technologies.

Here are some of the issues advocated by COAT:

Hearing Aid Compatibility.

Accessibility to internet-based communication products and services, if "readily achievable," the same requirement currently imposed on all telecommunications manufacturers and service providers.

Equal access to 9-1-1 emergency call centers through voice, text, the Internet, video, and any other new technologies.

Universal Service Fund (USF) coverage for video calls, as well as specialized equipment for deaf-blind consumers.

Caption decoding and display capability for all televisions, recording, and playback devices, with screens of any size.

Captioning obligations for Internet-based video programming.

Control buttons to turn captions on and off.

Copyright 2009 by Williaqm C. Cotter

The Silence is Deafening

March 2006 I was hospitalized with spinal meningitis, was in a coma for three weeks, suffered 100 percent bi-lateral hearing loss as well as loss of balance function in both ears. My wife reports that I was at death’s door three times. Apparently nobody opened up when I knocked. After months of rehabilitation, I am now able to walk again, though I look like a drunk leaving the bar at closing time. I stagger and stumble, wobble and weave and bump into things. But I walk. The loss of balance is permanent, and at this time there is no cure or treatment other than physical therapy.

I received a Cochlear Implant Oct. 5, and the exterior equipment was activated two weeks later. After months of silence, I can hear things now. It works best with a face-to-face, one-on-one conversation. Not so good in crowds or noisy environments. I still cannot use a regular telephone. I can hear the sounds, but I cannot understand the words. In fact, all electronic devices are pretty much just noise for me. This includes phones,tapes, broadcast radio and television. Nonetheless, I am happy to be able to hear people when they talk to me. And if I keep it simple, I can pretty much understand most of what is said. Sometimes I have to ask people to repeat things. We went to a Christmas party, and I was not able to understand a thing anybody said, because of noise and people talking at once. All in all, having the implant is great; being deaf is not. The difference is quality of life is night and day. When people ask me how I like having a Cochlear Implant, I tell them it is just like me: it is far from perfect, but it is wonderful.

Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter