Kathy Jo and Joy,
    This documentary is part of a long running documentary series known as
POV, try going to the website of your local PBS stations and entering POV
into the search field.  Sorry I can't tape it for you , I have DVD but no
VCR.
Susan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Pink" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: PBS TV Documentary - 'Freedom Machines" - Disability &
Technology


> I can't find it, everywhere either.  Could somebody  please videotape it
for
> me?
>
> Kathy Jo Pink
> [log in to unmask]
> AOL IM ScreenName:  kjptde
>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: St. John's University Cerebral Palsy List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Gary Peterson
> Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 1:28 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: PBS TV Documentary - 'Freedom Machines" - Disability &
> Technology
>
>
> PBS TV Documentary - 'Freedom Machines" - Disability & Technology
> ------- Forwarded message follows -------
> This upcoming television program may be of interest:
>
> P.O.V.'s 'Freedom Machines' Looks at Disability Through the Lens of
> Technology: Tuesday, Sept. 14 on PBS
>
> For Nation's 54 Million Citizens with Disabilities, Film Challenges
> Society' s Basic Notions About Disability
>
> Narrated by Peter Dinklage, star of 'The Station Agent'
>
> An Independent Television Service (ITVS) Co-presentation
>
> High school student Latoya Nesmith of Albany, N.Y. dreams of
> becoming a translator at the United Nations as she completes her
> classroom assignments using a keyboard that mitigates her limited
> dexterity. Floyd Stewart, paralyzed in mid-life by a car accident,
> uses assistive technologies to run Middle Tennessee's Center for
> Independent Living. Blind physicist Dr. Kent Cullers taught computers
> to do what his ears can do, and now leads the Search for
> Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Palo Alto,Calif.
> Susanna Sweeney-Martini is completing her college education in
> Seattle
> with the aid of a power wheelchair and voice-input software.
>
> These are a few of the people whose stories are at the center of
> Freedom Machines, a new documentary having its broadcast premiere
> Tuesday, Sept. 14 at 10 p.m. (check local listings) on PBS' acclaimed
> non-fiction series P.O.V.  This poignant and thought-provoking film
> tells the stories of people typically labeled (and dismissed) as
> "disabled", whose determination and access to inventive new
> technologies are transforming their lives and their communities.
>
> Jamie Stobie and Janet Cole's Freedom Machines is part of the 17th
> season of PBS's acclaimed P.O.V. series.  P.O.V. continues on
> Tuesdays, 10 p.m., through Sept. 28 on PBS.  A winter special
> completes the 2004 season. American television's longest-running
> independent documentary series, P.O.V. is public television's premier
> showcase for point-of-view, non-fiction films.
>
> Freedom Machines is not a profile of "unusual" people who have
> "overcome their disabilities" or succeeded "despite" their physical
> conditions. Rather, in showing what is possible, the film asks
> viewers
> to question accepted ideas of what "disability" means.  And access to
> assistive technologies is properly set in the context of civil rights
> and public policy rather than limited to the realm of charity or good
> will.
>
> Freedom Machines replaces romantic notions of gallant individual
> struggles with the reality of society's attitudes and choices about
> assistive technologies.  Who has access and who doesn't?  What
> decisions do we make about the design of our buildings, streets,
> transportation, and media?  Who bears the costs and who benefits? Do
> we see assistive technologies as burdensome disability devices, or,
> as
> inventor Dean Kamen says, "enabling devices?"  And if they are
> enabling devices, what do they enable us - all of us - to do?
>
> Freedom Machines shows what is now possible and what will soon be
> possible.  But, as the film demonstrates, the existence of the
> technology is not enough to ensure its use.  Liberating new
> technologies remain out of reach for many of America's 54 million
> disabled people. As Jackie Brand, founder of the Alliance for
> Technology Access and mother of one of the women profiled in Freedom
> Machines summarizes, "It's a terribly frustrating thing to look at
> something that you know would change your life so enormously and be
> so
> powerful for you, and to know it's not to be had because you don't
> have the resources and the society has not decided that it's
> important
> enough for you to have."
>
> The lives of the people we meet in Freedom Machines underscore the
> fact that the promises of 1990's landmark Americans with Disabilities
> Act, which mandated equal access to education, employment, and other
> essential activities and services for the country's largest minority
> group, remain largely unfulfilled. The benefits of new technology,
> new
> laws, and new design concepts are being held hostage to lack of
> funding, information, and political will.
>
> As a result, society as a whole misses the chance to maximize human
> potential and productivity.  As evidence, Freedom Machines explores
> the concept of "universal design" (UD), which employs technology and
> architecture to make environments adaptable to the particular needs
> and abilities of a wide range of individuals.  In doing so, UD is
> breaking down social distinctions between "abled" and "disabled." For
> example, the simple curb cut, once controversial, today facilitates
> the movements of mothers with baby carriages, delivery people with
> carts, even skateboarders, along with people who use wheelchairs.
>
> Narrated by actor Peter Dinklage, star of the acclaimed film The
> Station Agent, Freedom Machines is a timely and dramatic look at
> technology's new "enabling" wonders, and at the contradictions in
> social policy and attitudes that prevent their full employment by all
> those who need or can benefit from them.  Freedom Machines dares to
> envision a genuinely inclusive community, a community that benefits
> from each of its unique members contributing at their full capacity.
> ------- End of forwarded message -------
>
>
> ------- End of forwarded message -------
> --
>
> "Making a difference by telling stories that entertain, enlighten and
> inform."
> Fireweed Media Productions Inc.
>
> William McQueen
> 402-222 Wellesley Street East
> Toronto, Ontario. M4X 1G4
> Telephone: 416-410-2491 Ext. 3