Petition June 22, 2020
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in ATA.2 comments
If you are a voting member of ATA my colleagues and I respectfully ask you to consider signing and submitting this petition by June 24 (that’s tomorrow) so that a Bylaws amendment to ensure voter choice will be presented for a vote at the 2020 ATA Elections.
I spoke with a former president about this very subject on Thursday, so I was able to gain some insight as to why ATA does what it does. [S/he] said they don’t want to have to put up a “straw man” when they already have a good candidate in mind for the position. That doesn’t sound very democratic to me. In order for an organization to be strong there should be an active exchange of opinions – even and especially opinions that aren’t unanimous. [S/he] didn’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt and have them decide not to run again. It’s business, folks; it’s not personal. When Bob and I weren’t elected last year I didn’t let it get me down. That isn’t why I’m not running this year. I (and several others) put my nomination in this year, and it wasn’t accepted. I then decided to stay off the board and be a loud, pain-in-the-ass, squeaky wheel instead. If someone chooses to run for office in a contested election there will always be a winner and a loser. Maybe people didn’t know them. Maybe their speech didn’t match what people wanted for a representative. It doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t try again in the future.
ATA’s Bylaws allow competitive elections for President-elect as well as the other officers (Secretary and Treasurer). After Bob and I got over 100 votes each as write-in candidates, we sat in on the board meetings on Saturday and Sunday and witnessed the debate and the Board, at the Nominating Committee’s request, subsequently voting to eliminate the NC’s obligation to put forward multiple qualified members as nominees. There was quite a bit of confusion surrounding this vote, in fact.
Let’s clarify it for them. If you feel the Board should be working for its own members’ best interests, we need a vote to add a Bylaws amendment to ensure voter choice will be presented for a vote at the 2020 ATA Elections. Signing the petition will take two minutes at the most. Once you are finished please send the signed petition to atapetition@gmail.com. This ensures it will at least be put to a vote, as it should be.
Sign language interpreters and Gov. Mike DeWine April 30, 2020
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Random musings.3 comments
My state’s governor, Mike DeWine, has been doing a stellar job governing Ohio during the COVID-19 pandemic. I didn’t vote for him. His politics are not my politics. But I and many others are very impressed with the work he is doing and how decisive he has been. He relies on his Director of Health for the Ohio Department of Health, Dr. Amy Acton, when making his decisions. It’s so nice to have science-based decisions being made. Their daily afternoon briefings have become must-see television with many Ohioans (creating “Wine with DeWine” at 2 p.m.). One of my friend’s brothers has made a cartoon about “DeWine and Amy” that has gone viral and is a total hoot to watch.
Governor DeWine was one of the first governors to issue strict stay at home/shelter in place orders and quickly shut down all non-essential businesses. When criticized by his fellow Republicans he has continued to stay the course. As a result, Ohio has had a much flatter curve, with 17,000 confirmed cases and almost 1,000 deaths. He has allowed restaurants to operate with take-out services and then–just as I was missing having a drink with dinner–he announced restaurants could sell cocktails in to go containers. The peak appears to have been on April 27th, and the infection rate has been declining. A tentative reopening date has been set for tomorrow, although masks are a must and we are being urged to stay home if we can.
He surrounds himself with good, qualified people. He has a great team of sign language interpreters during his briefings, and he has a history of relying on trained interpreters. One interpreter, Marla Berkowitz, is the the only certified deaf interpreter in Ohio and has had a location front and center during the briefings. She has even stood out enough to have articles written about her. I assume she does some lip reading, but there is also someone signing to her, which she interprets and relays back in a very easy to understand and logical ASL and emotive facial expressions.
Musings from an overworked translator 