The I N
F O C U S
FREE
F O R
P E O P L E
OV E R
More than 200,000 readers throughout Greater Washington
VOL.28, NO.11
An ear that helps the blind read
Access by phone, too But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A telephone dial-in service offers an even greater cornucopia of information. By using a touch-tone phone and a recorded index, callers can skip around in a publication much the way a sighted person does when reading. The phone service also provides readings of almost every word of the publications, right down to the ads and grocery prices. And from 7 to 9 p.m. each evening, volunteers look up items from the Yellow Pages and the Washington Post classifieds for those who call in. “It’s a lifeline. That’s what we hear from listeners,” said Neely Oplinger, the executive director of the 45-year-old organization whose studio is in Silver Spring, Md. “For some people, it reduces the feeling of isolation and the frustration of not being able to do everything.” She cited a State Department official who was visually impaired and would lis-
NOVEMBER 2016
I N S I D E …
PHOTO BY REY LOPEZ
By Barbara Ruben On a recent Friday, Bob Gallagher and Sharon Palmer-Royston skim the front page of the Washington Post, taking note of tonguetwisting or unfamiliar names and words — from Oded Revivi the mayor of Efrat, an Israeli town in the West Bank, to the Iraqi village of Tiskharab outside of Mosul. Soon, they will begin reading these stories aloud on a special radio frequency to thousands of listeners who are blind or visually impaired. For a full two hours, they will share selected articles from each section of the Post, also describing each photograph in detail to paint a word picture for their listeners. Gallagher and Palmer-Royston are two of the 375 volunteers who read from newspapers and magazines — including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Baltimore Sun, as well as Time, Ebony, People and Washingtonian, among others — for a nonprofit service called Metropolitan Washington Ear. The Ear provides qualified listeners with special radios that are tuned to a frequency that can’t be accessed elsewhere. (It’s a subchannel of WETA.) Selected readings from these and other publications are broadcast either live or prerecorded 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
5 0
LEISURE & TRAVEL
A walking tour immerses you in Japanese history and customs; plus, a trip to Dallas minus the car, and the sorry state of travel deal websites page 46
ARTS & STYLE
Bob Gallagher and Sharon Palmer-Royston, shown here in a recording booth, are among hundreds of volunteers at the Metropolitan Washington Ear who read selected stories from the Washington Post and other publications aloud, broadcasting over a special radio frequency for those who are unable to read or utilize print publications. A dial-in telephone service is also available.
Kathleen Turner turns in a powerful performance at Arena Stage; plus, Broadway hits coming to the National Theatre, and Bob Levey looking at late-life love page 52
ten early each morning to catch up on the day’s news before beginning work. “Our founder was blind, and she wanted others who were blind to participate in life like anyone else would,” Oplinger added. “So if someone’s talking about a new book or political news or financial news, she wanted people to be able to participate,” she said. The late Margaret R. Pfanstiehl founded Metropolitan Washington Ear in 1974 after learning about a similar service in St. Paul, Minn. She garnered support and funding from governments around the Washington, D.C. region, raising over $100,000 in operating funds for the first year. Local funding remains a large part of the Ear’s budget today, but private donations are critical to keeping both the service and radios free for subscribers.
Pfanstiehl, who was legally blind due to an inherited retinal condition, also is remembered for working with public television officials to create a separate “audio description” soundtrack so those with visual impairments could hear a description of the action during TV programs via radio services nationwide. This earned her a national Emmy Award in 1990.
Describing what’s on stage Building on that success, more than 30 years ago the Ear began a similar audio description service for live local stage performances to help those with visual impairments more fully enjoy the arts. Through special headphones provided See WASHINGTON EAR, page 56
TECHNOLOGY k What barcodes can teach us
4
FITNESS & HEALTH 10 k Best ways to end knee pain k Eight ways to lower blood pressure LAW & MONEY 32 k Next steps for bond holders k The return of emerging markets SPOTLIGHT ON AGING k Newsletter for D.C. seniors
44
ADVERTISER DIRECTORY
63
PLUS CROSSWORD, BEACON BITS, CLASSIFIEDS & MORE