‘Have you ever loved a blind person?’

Well I have and It’s a happy sad love because he claims he sees you but doesn’t. He’s not in love with your make up or your hair do or your yellow blouse or beautiful hijab, he’s in love with your mind and that’s a good thing. But every lady wants to be told she’s beautiful after she’s clad in her most gorgeous outfit, but he doesn’t tell you you’re beautiful no matter how radiantly dressed you are. He tells you you’re beautiful when you cook him that something special; beautiful when you inspire him with deep words of wisdom; beautiful when you pray out loud for him and kiss his forehead with the amin; beautiful in the deep of the night when he’s deep inside you; beautiful when he smells your skin at dawn; beautiful when he caresses your face, you’re beautiful…

A young Kichwa girl at blockade, photo by David Hill.

David Hill, The Ecologist, Feb 10, 2015

A month-long blockade of the Rio Tigre deep in the Peruvian Amazon has secured promises of compensation and cleanup for Peru’s Kichwa communities who have suffered 40 years of contaminated waters from oil drilling operations in their remote Amazon region. But until the funds materialize, they are holding firm in their resolve.

Hundreds of of Kichwa indigenous people living along the River Tigre in the remote Peruvian Amazon are demanding over 100 million Peruvian nuevo soles ($32 million / £21 million) from oil company Pluspetrol in the “environmental damages” they have sustained over 40 years of oil drilling.

National conference call about library services CELA and more.

Posted by Kim Kilpatrick

GTT Coordinator

We will have a national conference call on Wednesday February 11 2015.

It will start at 7 Eastern time.

Here is some information about it.

Many GTT members have asked us about the CNIB library service and the new CELA service.

How does it work?

How are they different?

Are they different?

How can people access them?

So, we are  delighted to have Margaret McGrory, Vice President, Executive Director, CNIB Library and Lindsay Tyler, Manager, Centre for Equitable Library Access, joining us to answer your questions about the changes in library service..

Space will be limited so RSVP to Kim Kilpatrick to get the call in info.

If this is very popular, we will invite them to join us on another conference call.

To book a space, call Kim at (613) 567-0311

1-877-304-0968

Or…

Our next phone meeting is scheduled for Friday, January 30 from 8:00-10:00 PM Eastern time. People outside of Philadelphia are also welcome.
There are many topics which we could discuss. Possibilities include

1. The release of the Be my Eyes app for iOS, allowing blind users to connect with over 90,000 sighted volunteers to receive free assistance. Have you tried the app? Do you like it?

2. On January 21, Microsoft hosted a major press event which they called Windows 10: the Next Chapter. You can read more about the announcements and watch an archive of the webcast from the above link. Among other things, they provided more information about Windows 10, including that it will contain the Cortana voice assistant and that the OS will be free during the first year of its release for users of Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.

3. AI Squared released version 9 of…