You're right about Spanish Braille. Many of our grade II symbols are used
for the punctuation marks and accented letters, etc.
-----Original Message-----
From: VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nelson Blachman
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 4:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: if you're going to be blind, be Spanish
Otra razo'n para ser espan~ol
Looking through a recent Braille edition of the catalogue of talking books
and Braille books led me to suspect that Spanish Braille should be much
easier to learn than English Braille, as there seemed to be no contractions
of any sort. Even "ch," the fourth letter of the Spanish alphabet seemed
not to be abbreviated. Below is as much as I could deduce of the Braille
representations of the accented letters.
So both the Spanish National Lottery and the lack of a Grade 2 may be good
reasons to become Spanish.
--Nelson
________
~n = 12456 a' = 12356 e' = 16? i' = 34 o' = 346 u' = 23456
----- Original Message -----
From: "Diane Scalzi" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: if you're going to be blind, be Spanish
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I think this article goes a long way to explain an experience I had
> back
in
> 1974 while a college student studying in Madrid. One night I got off
> the bus near my apartment building after my last class of the day. I
> was walking along the street when a guy whose breath smelled like he
> had drunk several bottles of wine or cognac thrust a coin in my hand
> and said "loteria." I returned it explaining rather indignantly that
> I was a student. I later found out that blind folks in Spain sold
> lottery tickets to support themselves. I certainly never realized
> what a good thing they had going.
>
> Diane Scalzi
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Senk
> Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 4:32 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: if you're going to be blind, be Spanish
>
> I found this old article and wanted to share it with the list.
> www.once.es is the group's website (in Spanish)
>
>
>
> SPANISH BLIND GROUP THRIVES ON LARGESS OF LOTTERY
>
> By: CIARAN GILES
>
> Editor's Note: The following article is re-printed from the Associated
> Press, May 29, 2000.
>
> MADRID, Spain (AP) - The Spanish Civil War killed and maimed hundreds
> of thousands of soldiers and civilians and left much of Spain in ruins.
> Yet, for one disabled group, the war's legacy has had advantages.
>
> No one knows how many people were blinded in the 1936-39 conflict, but
eager
> to rid himself of the problem, dictator Francisco Franco ordered them
> to form a national organization and take care of themselves. To
> encourage
them,
> he granted the right to create a national lottery. Six decades later,
> with Franco long dead and democracy fully restored, the National
> Organization
of
> Blind Spaniards has blossomed into one of Spain's most successful
businesses
> and one of the world's most dynamic disabled support groups.
>
> "There's no doubt about it, if you're going to be blind, be Spanish,"
> quips Miguel Callejas, a blind man who has sold lottery tickets the
> past
> 28 years for ONCE, the Spanish acronym for the organization. Lottery
> drawings, staged every day except Saturday, bring in the equivalent of
$2.3
> billion a year. Profits enable the organization to guarantee
> employment
for
> nearly all of Spain's 60,000 blind.
>
> "I know of nothing even comparable to the ONCE in the entire world,"
> said Edwin Vaughan, a blind sociology professor at the University of
> Missouri who has studied how countries view and treat blind people.
> "In nearly every country, the United States included, blindness is
> associated with begging and the blind are virtually totally dependent
> on welfare assistance with employment opportunities severely limited,"
> he said. "In Spain, it's the opposite."
>
> In the United States, unemployment among the blind rarely falls below
> 70 percent, while in Spain, it's hardly ever above 5 percent, Vaughan
said.
> The European Blind Union says its latest figures, for 1995, showed
> that
out
> of 41,000 blind adults available for work in Germany, only 9,000 had a
job.
> In France, only 7,000 of the 18,000 working age blind were employed.
> ONCE receives no government subsidy and its board is independent and
> elected every four years by its members, all blind or sight-impaired.
> The growth
of
> the lottery allowed ONCE to gradually build up a business empire with
stakes
> in everything from hotels to construction. In the 1980s, it branched
> into the media, founding a private national TV channel, a national
> daily newspaper and a popular radio chain. But sensing expansion was
> tarnishing its more-important image as a caring group for the
> disabled, ONCE sold off its principal media holdings -- at a profit.
> Nowadays, ONCE is as Spanish as bullfighting, sidewalk cafes and soccer.
> Vendors wearing dark glasses and carrying canes pace the streets in
> nearly every village, barking out, "Lucky numbers for today!" In the
> cities,
single
> vendors sit in enclosed ONCE kiosks, selling tickets through glass
windows.
>
> The lottery has thrived not only because Spaniards love to gamble, but
> because of clever marketing and slick advertising. Midweek coupons
> sell
for
> 200 pesetas($1.25), offering a chance at 500 daily top prizes of 5
> million pesetas ($33,000) each and thousands of smaller winnings. The
> No. 1 prize for the Sunday lottery pays $58,000 a year for 25 years.
>
> Totally independent since 1982, ONCE plows its profits into serving
> its members. It runs Europe's biggest guide dog school, a factory
> whose
products
> include canes, children's Braille sets and portable speech-activated
> computers and social rehabilitation centers. It also works with other
> companies, such as Microsoft, to develop systems and technical
> innovations for the blind. On a more public level, ONCE runs a
> touch-and-feel art
Museum
> for the Blind. In 1998, it organized an international competition in
Madrid
> for blind athletes. In recent years, ONCE has supported projects for
> the blind abroad, including in several Latin American nations, notably
> Chile a
nd
> Argentina.
>
> ONCE estimates there are 150 million blind people in the world, but
> many poor countries do not keep records on who and where they are.
> "The ONCE's idea is that the blind should care for the blind. In most
> countries,
nobody
> looks after them at all," said Rafael Mondaca, the organization's
> director of international relations. ONCE recognizes that even though
> it is
private,
> it has a privileged position and the government could withdraw its
> lottery rights or grant licenses to other causes. "Fortunately, it
> wouldn't make business sense for the Spanish government to do so
> because it knows that
if
> ONCE crumbled it would then be responsible for looking after the blind
> itself," said Pedro Zurrita, who heads the World Blind Organization,
> which is based in Madrid.
>
> "For the Civil War authorities, it was a load off their mind," he said.
> "Back then no one thought the lottery was ever going to be so successful.
> It's unlikely that any government would do it today."
>
>
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VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to [log in to unmask]
In the body of the message, simply type "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe
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VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
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VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
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