According to Maclean’s, Braille is a dying form of communication. Its decline is attributed to the twin force of strained public budgets and technological innovation. Braille materials are expensive to produce and schools and libraries simply don’t have the resources to convert every book into Braille format. And new technologies like audio readers are cheaper and can be used without any prior instruction. The article points out that people who learn Braille do better on reading comprehension tests and are more likely to find employment. Braille advocates also point out that to not teach Braille to blind kids is to leave them functionally illiterate.

Without learning Braille, most blind people would be living in a strictly oral culture. Is that a bad thing? I’m not sure. Technology that can scan and read printed materials will only get better. These devices will offer a versatility that Braille simply can’t match. At the same time, technology can create unnecessary dependency. Take away the technology and the person truly is illiterate. A familiarity with a written language might not make us better thinkers, but it does fundamentally alter how we perceive and describe the world around us. And it doesn’t require batteries.

The major topic of discussion at work today was the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision invalidating the governor’s unallotment of several social service and health care programs. With only two weeks remaining in the legislative session, this decision complicates efforts to balance the budget. The legislature can and probably will pass a balanced budget, but Pawlenty can still veto bills. One side will probably have to cave because the likelihood of a negotiated compromise seems remote. The only other option is a government shutdown, which wouldn’t accomplish much except to fuel voter anger in an election year.

Daniyah Manderson, a young teacher in New York City who also happens to have spinal muscular atrophy, is profiled in yesterday’s Times. The article and accompanying video provide an unflinching look at the challenges in her life that are both mundane (a broken elevator in the school where she teaches) to the deeply personal (an abusive husband). She is also raising a young daughter. The piece manages to capture Daniyah’s independent spirit as well as the reality of her limitations without falling into the trap of supercrip worship. It also makes me think that New York City is probably more inaccessible than Minneapolis by several orders of magnitude.

The article includes some details that made me wince. Daniyah doesn’t eat or drink anything during the day because nobody is available to help her use the bathroom at school. While the school isn’t obligated to assist her with her personal needs, it’s also not great policy to let one of your employees starve and dehydrate herself each day. It’s stories like this that remind me how ridiculously spoiled I am when it comes to having my own needs met.

It’s so windy today that one of my neighbors’ windows just popped out of its frame and shattered on the deck a few floors below. This seems to happen at least a couple times every spring and it poses a significant hazard to anyone who might happen to be on the deck. High-rise living is not without its hazards. I’m guessing that our building association will soon assess us for new windows for the entire building rather than risk a lawsuit from someone who gets boinked on the head by a freefalling pane of glass.

The Times has an amusing story about how self-appointed grammar police are patrolling the Twitterverse for blatant violations of proper spelling and usage. It probably wouldn’t surprise most of my readers if I told you that a screeching, knuckle-rapping grammarian lurks just beneath my calm and affable exterior. My teeth involuntarily grind together when I encounter a sentence that uses “your” when the author really means “you’re.” A little vein in forehead pulses whenever I encounter the word “irregardless.” In another era, I might have been a much-despised bachelor English teacher at a grim English boarding school.

This is all to say that I have some sympathy for the cause of these grammar cops, even though I think their efforts might be needlessly confrontational. Our national literacy levels won’t plummet if someone posts a badly written tweet. There are enough really talented writers on Twitter to keep the general readability of the format pretty high.