From the [UK] Guardian:

The BBC has reached the landmark of having all its shows accessible to the hard of hearing via subtitles.

… The service now offers more than 50,000 hours of subtitled content a year, including all the BBC’s national and regional programming…

Host Ira Glass enters Michael Phillips’ life, provides catalyst for transformation

Eric Deggans, writing in the St. Petersburg Times, documents the unlikely partnership between This American Life’s Ira Glass and Michael Phillips, a 27-year-old with a genetic muscle disease that has left him with the ability to move only his face and his thumb. Their collaboration became the story that kicked off TAL’s second television season last weekend.

Glass had heard about Phillips through one of his producers, and was

… drawn in first by his matter-of-fact recounting of how often he nearly dies when there is a problem with his respirator.

“The way he wrote about what those moments were like was utterly without melodrama,” said the host, who was intent on avoiding a typical, corny story about overcoming a disability. “It was just a very easy reporting of, ‘Here’s everything that goes through my head when I realize I may die in a minute.’ It was kind of amazing.”

After the exchange of many email messages, Phillips realized he wanted more independence from his mother, who still sleeps each night at his bedside so that she can respond if his breathing tube pops out.

Another goal was to spend more private time with his girlfriend Sara Rosenbaum (above, with Phillips), a St. Petersburg Times reporter whom he met through an online ad.

“There was no space in his life for me,” [Rosenbaum] said. “As he started writing Ira, he began to change; he realized what he wanted in his life . . . (and) after Ira left, I began to realize how much I cared for Mike after all.”

An excerpt of the show can be seen on the Showtime site here. Actor Johnny Depp provides the voice for Phillips’ emails.

Broadcaster’s older sister, who had developmental disabilities, was ‘most significant person’ in her life (At left, Jackie with parents Lou and Dena in a photo from the late 1940s)

From the San Francisco Chronicle, an extended interview keyed to the release of Walter’s memoir “Audition.” Walters discloses in the book that her relationship with her older sister Jacqueline was difficult. As a child, she says, she was jealous of the attention her sister received. Here’s the portion of the interview in which Walters discusses Jackie:

“I had wanted originally for [the book] to just be my childhood,” she says, dressed in a beige pantsuit and dove-gray heels. “I was going to call the book ‘Sister,’ because I thought that my childhood was unusual and poignant and because I thought that my sister, who would today be called intellectually impaired and then was called mentally retarded, was the most significant person in my life.”

… Walters is the first to admit her feelings about her sister were not always saintlike. “Because she was isolated, I was isolated,” she says. “I didn’t bring friends home and I didn’t have birthday parties and I didn’t join the Girl Scouts and it was my parents trying to protect her, although they certainly loved me. And I felt love for her but also pity, and there were times when I hated her and felt terribly guilty.

“I think anyone who has any member of their family who is disabled will feel that: You love them, you feel guilty, you feel torn. And she was my responsibility in many ways until she died.”

(more…)

From CNETNews.com:

Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) is advocating for changes that would require Internet phone and video products to be made accessible to people with disabilities. Markey, who chairs the House telecommunications and Internet panel, is drafting a bill that would require Internet-based devices to be able to decode closed captioning and deliver oral narration.

“The wizardry of the wires and the sophistication of the software programs do little for those who cannot affordably access or effectively use them,” Markey said at a subcommittee hearing this week.

Among those supporting Markey’s efforts was actor Russell Harvard, who starred with Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. Harvard urged Congress to take closed captioning law “to its next level.”

“I and others who cannot hear are left out of this whirlwind of technological change (because) hardly any of these smaller devices display closed captions,” said Harvard, who is deaf.

Associated Press in the Washington Post:

For the third consecutive week, a last-place finish has led to elimination on “Dancing With the Stars.”

This week’s celebrity casualty was Marlee Matlin, who came into Tuesday’s results show with 21 out of 30 points. The actress lost her timing at various points during her mambo Monday with professional partner Fabian Sanchez, and the judges took note.

… Judge Bruno Tonioli noticed “a few stumbles” but still called Matlin’s performance “a great achievement.”

“What you do here is a plus for the show,” he said.

Hallmark drama explores couple’s dilemma over whether their son should have cochlear implant

Tonight on CBS.

Brian Lowry in Variety:

Twenty-three years after “Love Is Never Silent,” Hallmark and producer-director Joseph Sargent revisit deafness with a universal theme that contemplates the relationship of a minority group to society at large. Here, the pivotal question involves a choice unavailable to most minorities — whether they would opt out of that status if possible. Buoyed by Marlee Matlin and Jeff Daniels’ strong performances, the Hall of Fame’s 233rd entry suffers from a tepid ending but still gets its thoughtful point across, loud and clear.

David Hinckley in the New York Daily News:

… The larger question raised by “Sweet Nothing” - about “disabilities” and the way the rest of the world reacts to them - is legitimate and profound.The resolution, and its implication for both sides, feels somewhat less.

Tom Jicha in the Orlando Sun-Sentinel: Acting can’t save preachy drama

In spite of its provocative subject matter, Sweet Nothing in My Ear is not satisfying entertainment. Characters don’t do dialogue, they make speeches, and there is an overly conscientious effort to make sure every conceivable position is represented. This culminates in an unforgivable cop-out resolution that will offend no one — except those who have invested two hours, only to be left feeling they have been abandoned in the middle of a story.

‘Sweet Nothing in my Ear’ to air next week

From the Los Angeles Times:

During 32 years playing Linda the Librarian on “Sesame Street” actress Linda Bove introduced millions of children to sign language and issues involving the deaf community. Now Bove, who is deaf, is working behind the scenes to help actors portray roles involving deafness in a realistic, sensitive way.

For the upcoming Hallmark special “Sweet Nothing in My Ear” starring Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin, Bove coached Daniels on his role as the husband of a deaf woman and the father of a deaf son. She had just two and a half weeks to help him learn all his lines in American Sign Language — and to help him remember to keep his hands in the frame.

Bove also advised the production on issues pertaining to deaf culture.

“They asked me if a deaf person can sign in rubber gloves while they were washing dishes,” says Bove with a chuckle. “And I said, ‘Sure.’ I was happy they were sensitive enough to ask a question like that. I thought that was very sweet … There was a husband and wife who were in an argument. And they were, like, ‘Can a wife turn their lights off so she can’t see what he’s signing?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely, she can do that. Sure.’ “

The show explores a couple’s tension over whether or not their son should undergo surgery and get a cochlear implant. It will air on CBS on April 20.