From: Al and Masha Sten-Clanton 
Subject: Re: Oregon Convention
Hi, Pete!
As a member who left and rejoined this outfit--rejoining both to help in
its good work and to wor for improvements--I have considerable sympathy
for your call to critics to join and help.  At the same time, we should
state boldly and clearly that our first order of business is to address
logically the criticisms we get, weeding out the useful from the useless
and doing better next time.  It seems to me that our critics have no more
of an obligation to join us, or to pitch in on every specific problem they
find with what we do, than you or I have to join the Microsoft programming
staff in order to have the right to complain about the inaccessability of
that company's programs.  If I think a company puts out a lousy product, I
have no obligation to seek employment with it, though I might.  I may
indeed have a moral obligation to let other people know what specifically
is lousy about the product:  often, that's the most constructive thing a
person can do.  I think it's clear from Kelly's message that he's not a
member of this outfit.  I suspect it would help us if he were, though the
only thing I currently associate with him is the message in question.  I
also suspect that he is taking on a share of the work that must be done to
promote the welfare of blind people, or he probably would not have been
invited to the Oregon affiliate's convention.  Folks like him won't join
and shouldn't be expected to join until they've been persuaded that they
can do more good through us than ouside us, and that we'll deal sensibly
with both their positive and negative observations.
I'm not endorsing what Kelly Ford said, of course.  I wasn't there.  If
the affiliate couldn't afford to do the brailling any other way, then it
doesn't matter what other organizations--those with mostly or completely
sighted memberships--would or wouldn't tolerate:  Braille is still more
expenseive and more difficult to produce in large quantities than print
is, and that's real life for the moment.  And, maybe the reason for using
that hotel was the room rates, and these may have been an access issue of
sorts that overrode the ones about which he complained.  Maybe.  And maybe
Kelly's been around the convention circuits of blind folks long enough
that he should have known to think about or check on these things before
blasting us.
Then again, maybe there are times when our people are as careless about
access issues as are the sighted people and the businesses with whom we
often must work or fight as we journey towards first-class status.  Maybe
people who have drivers sometimes forget how it for those who don't.  More
than once in the past, our own affiliate had committee meetings in rooms
that were inaccessable to a committee member who used a wheelchair.  I
don't think that will happen again.  Would the complaint about it have
been less valid if it had come from a guest speaker?  I think not.  Other
things matter, but the truth of the complaint, and what we can do about
it, are what count most.  That, at least, is my perspective of the moment.
Take care, and keep up your variety of good works!
Al
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