Hey guys, I worte a leter to Senator John Kerry to join this anti-caption censorship campagin. Read it below and tell me what do you think.

"Dear Senator J. Kerry,
My name is Joseph Tien and I am sending you a message about captioning censorship. The president will plan to put captioning censorship bill in effects if he approves it. This bill is the violation to the First Amendment. This captioning censorship is frankly ludicrous and prejudiced because it targets the deaf communities. I am one of them. This bill proposes to eliminate the captions on an entertainment media that we enjoy watching and benefit English learning from it, and it will be allowed on educational and informative programs and we don't want that. I have the internet link from the NAD (National Association of Deaf) which provides a lot of information. Here is the link, http://www.nad.org/openhouse/action/alerts/captioningcensorship/pr.html
The captioning censorship bill will remove our usual TV shows from programs such as Disney, Law & Order: SUV, MTV, Cartoon Network, and so on. The department of Education agrees with this bill because they believe that they aren't appropriate to the deaf children and adult viewers. I find this ridiculous and discriminative. And where is our right on this? They are taking our rights to watch a media entertainment. It's just because of TV shows like X-Men: Evolution is filled with action-packed and seemed violence shouldn't deprive our rights to watch it. If a child behaves a certain way from a TV show, it's a couple of parents' responsibility to discipline and educate their children about their behavior and free speech. We can't blame entertainment media for our actions or whatsoever because we have responsibility for our actions.
And if you let the congress takes away our rights and needs for the closed captions on TV that would be, again, as I previously stated, a violation of the First Amendment, it will give out a different message about our country's philosophy and educational benefit from the captioned entertainment media. With it, the deaf children will learn how to establish dialogues with people in the real world, and the TV shows on the so-called-disapproved listings are the key to it because they offer many reality-based situations. They stimulate their minds for solving their problems and ideas. Besides learning how to establish dialogues from the captioned shows, they have the right to enjoy TV shows as hearing viewers do regularly.
Closed Captioned TV shows are being used by hearing viewers because they like to read the words, use them to improve their English, and to stimulate their writing skills in their compositions.
To sum it up, I ask you to join in this campaign against Caption Censorship Bill and to preserve our First Amendment. Deaf Americans people not only need you to help them to help the congress to overturn this bill, but also hearing Americans need you to preserve our nation’s philosophy (Liberty, Life, and Pursuit of Happiness). "

Good job Joe and good luck. Perhaps mention the fact that there are deaf ADULTS who have the right to chose what they watch and should be able to read, no matter the content of the program.

Thanks, Scoobe. Yup, you are right. It doesn't matter what kind of contents we have on TV. We can choose not to view it or to view it.

Looks good Notaro. If I were you I would think about getting some type of petition going as well. The more people you have agreeing with your opinion, the more attention it will receive.

Nice letter... I should send the petition to him So far 13 signatures..

Good Job!!
I have just signed the online petition, and sined it for 3 other friends 2 of which are deaf and don't have internet.

Nice letter.
I hit your link, but did not see a online pettion. If you have a link to it directly or can tell me where it is, I would be happy to sign it.
My third son is with me being home schooled. They are trying to regulate the homeschooling process too. From the FEDERAL level!!!
I don't mean to side track, but my point is, We must ALL watch our goverment carefully at all times. There is a never ending desire for the goverment to control ever part of our lives. The bigger the Goverment, the less freedom we have. Keep the people in control of the goverment and not the other way around.
Good Luck, and let me know the link to your pettion. PM me.
Thanks,
Pete MacKay

Thanks for signing... 23 Signatures today!

here is the link it should work

http://www.petitiononline.com/ctv02790/petition.html

Guess what?!? It's in effects now! They just cut off the captioning on some programs like USA, Disney, etc. The caption censorship will conqueror all programs except for imformaive programs and news programs. We are trying to fight it now. President Bush has approved the caption censorship bill. I don't believe it. It sucks!:af: :af:

:eek: :af:

Katie,
Don't use blue and purple text on a dark blue background. And don't post spam

Originally posted by CustomMarineProducts
Katie,
And don't post spam

spam? what are you talking about? Shes not spaming anything..??

This thread was about a letter to Kerry. not Katie posting here website info

where is she talking about her web site?

its ok its only katie and shes cool . no spam intended !

Originally posted by chris L
its ok its only katie and shes cool . no spam intended !

dito,

I dont know if have talked to john about having your web site all over your name and profile-tag , but i think your doing the same as her, no?

I didn't mean to make a stink, she only a kid. If she wants to do websites, I can give her link to places that will forward her customers.

Seems to me like ya got a link in your sig there too pal. Give the kid a break huh. if John aint got issues with it, why should you?

who you think you are!!:D :happy: :happy: :laughs: :laughs:

Sorry guys.. I'll take'em off right away. :D It's no problem for me. :D

Looks like a newspaper (the Palm Beach Post, a Florida paper) has picked up on this story.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/opinion_0442326e064c624b0099.html

Censor 'Scooby-Doo'? Words fail

By Dan Moffett, Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
Sunday, February 8, 2004

The Bush administration has decided that people with bad hearing have bad judgment, too, and need special guidance from the federal government.

So the U.S. Department of Education is declaring about 200 television programs inappropriate for closed-captioning and denying federal grant requests to make them accessible to the hearing-impaired.

The department made its decisions based on the recommendations of a five-member panel. Who the five members are, only the government seems to know, and it isn't saying. But the shows they censored suggest a perspective that is Talibanesque.

The government is refusing to caption Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, apparently fearing that the deaf would fall prey to witchcraft if they viewed the classic sitcoms.

Your government also believes that Law & Order is too intense for the hard-of-hearing. So is Power Rangers. You can rest easy knowing that your federal tax dollars aren't being spent to promote Sanford and Son, Judge Wapner's Animal Court and The Loretta Young Show within the deaf community. Kids with hearing problems can forget about watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, classic cartoons or Nickelodeon features. Even Roy
Rogers and Robin Hood are out.

Sports programming took a heavy hit, too. The government has decided that people with hearing problems don't need to watch NASCAR, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League or Professional Golf Association tournaments.

The National Association of the Deaf says the government used to caption these shows but abruptly changed course, deciding that the shows don't fit the required definition of "educational, news or informational" programming.

"They've suddenly narrowed down the definition of those three kinds of programming without public input," says Kelby Brick, director of the NAD's law and advocacy center. "Basically, the department wants to limit captioning to puritan shows. The department wants to ensure that deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals are not exposed to any non-puritan
programming. Never mind that the rest of the country is allowed to be exposed."

How imperiled the nation might be if The Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle reached into the living rooms of the impressionable
hard-of-hearing. Or, for that matter, Scooby-Doo.

The censorship raises baffling questions about who gets in and who's left out. The government has rejected Nancy Drew but is accepting Andy Hardy. Cory the Clown has won approval, but the Cisco Kid is toast. Charlie Rose and Rod Serling are worthy of captions, but Catherine Crier and Dominick Dunne aren't. Go figure.

The Department of Education is refusing to reveal the names of the panel members whose opinions determined the caption grants and also won't disclose the new guidelines. By every appearance, the government has changed its definition of what constitutes a caption-worthy program. But it's keeping the new rules secret.

"They apparently used a panel of five individuals and then made the censorship decisions based on the individuals' recommendations," Mr. Brick says. "We have found the identity of one of the panelists. This individual tells us that he never knew he was on such a panel and that his views would be used for censorship. No panel was convened. The five panelists were contacted individually and separately."

It could be that people with bad hearing are new casualties of the Bush administration's budget priorities. Paying the Halliburton bills and sending a man to Mars will be costly, perhaps equally so. It could be that missing Bewitched and Law & Order is just one sacrifice the deaf will have to make to advance homeland security and fight terrorism.

The education department makes promises about "No Child Left Behind," but it didn't say anything about leaving behind people with bad hearing. Maybe they should have seen this coming.

The NAD is lobbying Congress to change the policy. Some networks and sponsors are stepping in and providing captions for some of the "inappropriate" shows. But the government's dismissive treatment of 28 million Americans defies words.

"We are outraged the department has taken paternalistic steps to exclude deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals," Mr. Brick says. "Such censorship is offensive and insulting."


:af: :af: :af: Now what am I supposed to watch!? Why don't they just turn off the sound while they're at it?

Dave, WTF is going on? Those chits are pretty offensive coming from the dept of education, bush, and gov't. I don't believe it, man. I emailed my letter to Kerry three times and I never recieved his response. Why are they targeting us? Oh please, Tailbanquse? Get bloody real! Even children w/o a had hearing is watching talibanquse. Oh man, what are we going to do about it? Set up a rally at the state house w/ deaf university students?

http://www.nad.org/openhouse/action/alerts/captioningcensorship/ncdsupport.html

Seems like NAD is on top of it. Lex Frieden's letter to Robert Page raises a valid point; why would they leave 28 million deaf viewers in the dark? In my opinion, I think this thing is gonna be reversed as it was in 1998 when they tried to censor it the first time. I'm not gonna do anything now, but I'm gonna sit and watch how things play out first. If things don't get better after a while, that's when I'll start figuring things out.

-Dave

http://nad.org/openhouse/action/alerts/idea/IDEAalert2003june.html

GREAT NEWS!!

417 SIGNATURES!!!!

that is great news, thanks for all of your help Katie! :btu:

Dave, that isnt enough. We need more petitions. Get your friends and fiends to sign up for our rights to watch captioned programs. I already emailed it to Kerry, but I am going to email to Kennedy soon.

Joe, check your PMs

how does this sound???

1123 signatures!

Yippie! Katie, again, I want to thank you for your hardwork and generousity for setting this petition up. You did well, kiddo!

:shocked: holy Mackerel, 600 signatures in a few days...I'm speechless...great job Katie

i just checked it...

1300 signatures...not to shabby

let me correct myself.. as of 7:39pm there are 1302..yay!
http://www.petitiononline.com/ctv02790/petition.html

thats the link if you need it.

Okay here is Katie's Update.

In the past 3 days the petition has gotten over 600 signatures so now we are at..1757 signature when yesterday it was 1537 signatures.. not to shabby..:D

thanks dad.. but a few hours later we have 1790

not too shabby at all :D

1893

Dave, we should show this petition to Julia...

1976 26 away from 2000

1991

9 more

2041

2458..awsome

EXCELLENT JOB !!!!!

thank ya :D :D :D:D

2521 :p :D :)

Spanish Version:

Esta petición va absolutamente well..but que sus down..there que se retardan ahora son 2578 firmas

English Version:

This petition is going quite well..but its slowing down..there are 2578 signatures now

pretty kewl huh?

2702 this thing is really slowing down..