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Confession. Credit: catholicrelics.co.uk.. Phoenix, Ariz., Dec 20, 2013 / 02:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Phoenix, Ariz., priest has invented a computer system intended to help Catholics who are deaf, hearing-impaired or speech-impaired to make their confessions. Father Romuald P. Zantua, the system’s inventor, told CBCP News that his invention will help increase the practice of confessions, especially for deaf people who have limited access to priests who know sign language. The website for the system, called St. Damien’s Confession Box, says it is primarily aimed at the deaf and those with speech impediments who may not be able to communicate...

ou can't make things like this up, but this unnamed man apparently did. From AP via My Way News (12/11/2013): Mandela ceremony interpreter called a 'fake' JOHANNESBURG (AP) - A man who provided sign language interpretation on stage for Nelson Mandela's memorial service, attended by scores of heads of state, was a "fake," the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa said on Tuesday. Asked about the claim by The Associated Press, South Africa's government said it was preparing a statement. Three sign language experts said the man was not signing in South African or American sign languages....

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A man who appeared to provide sign language interpretation on stage for Nelson Mandela's memorial service, attended by scores of heads of state, was a "fake," the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa said on Wednesday. The unidentified man seen around the world on television next to leaders including United States President Barack Obama "was moving his hands around but there was no meaning in what he used his hands for," Bruno Druchen, the federation's national director, told The Associated Press. The allegation was yet another example of bad organization at the historic memorial...

Muslim deaf & dumb juveniles are kept chained in rural Bengal • Chained in ropes and shackles for years. Inhumane treatment to deaf and dumb juveniles in Muslim families of rural Bengal. It is obviously inhumane and utter injustice to put some juveniles in ropes or shackles as they are challenged persons, very unfortunately. But, in a Muslim village of Sahebdanga near Shantipur (in Nadia, West Bengal, India) it is an Islamic fashion to put the Deaf and Dumb or mentally incapacitated juveniles in chain as they are simply uncontrollable or misunderstood sometime. Take the story of cute Arfin of...

As gay marriage continues marching it's way through the country via our judicial oligarchical overlords, we're constantly told that there's no way the government will ever go after the Church for not performing gay marriage. But that ignores the ideological blinders of bureaucrats. You think they won't come after the Church's tax exemption for their refusal to acknowledge and perform gay marriage? To witness the idiotic lengths these Orwellian knuckleheads will go to, check out this story from Moonbattery :Arizona is defying a federal order to eliminate apartments for deaf seniors at a housing complex built specifically — for the...

We have a great little movie theater in our neighborhood. It has just three screens, but it always shows the newest releases. The best parts of the movie experience at our little theater are the food and the seating. We get to sit at tables in nice, padded chairs on a gently sloping floor. We can order real food to eat, including salads, burgers and chicken wings, regular and alcoholic beverages, and the most awesome chocolate, chocolate-chip cake (with ice cream, of course!) We used to not go to the movies very often, but our little neighborhood theater has drawn...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- Some Starbucks workers in the city were so rude to deaf customers they mocked them and called the police to try to get them kicked out, a lawsuit says.</p> <p>The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order from the court to stop discriminatory behavior for what's described as multiple occasions of abuse over the past year.</p>

Commerce has moved online. Now, the disability lawsuits are following. Advocates for disabled Americans have declared that companies have a legal obligation to make their websites as accessible as their stores, and they've filed suits across the country to force them to install the digital version of wheelchair ramps and self-opening doors.

Parents of a deaf child named Hunter were told by his Nebraska public preschool that they must change his name because he was in violation of the school district’s weapons policy. To sign his name, the three-year-old crosses his index and middle fingers then wags his hands. This sign apparently appeared to school officials to represent a gun. Grand Island Public Schools’ policy section 8470 — Weapons in Schools states: “Students are forbidden to knowingly and voluntarily possess, handle, transmit or use any instrument in school, on school grounds or at school functions that is a firearm, weapon, or looks...

Two deaf twin brothers in Belgium were euthanized by their doctor after realizing they were going blind and would be unable to see each other ever again, their physician says. The 45-year-old men, whose names have not been made public, were legally put to death by lethal injection at the Brussels University Hospital in Jette, on Dec. 14. The men, who were born deaf, had a cup of coffee and said goodbye to other family members before walking into hospital room together to die, their doctor told Belgian television station RTL.

Hi Folks!  This is perhaps the most absurd story ever reported here — and that’s saying a lot! A reader named Rachel writes:A Deaf child named Hunter is not allowed to use his name sign because the sign for “Hunter” (a dictionary word) uses the thumb and first two fingers in a gun shape and suggests a shooting motion. Here’s the story.These school officials have lost their ability to reason if they believe stripping a child of his name is necessary for safety under a weapons policy. Educators who are unable to use logic and critical thinking have no business...

--IMAGE HERE-- When I wrote last week’s Anti-Gun Wacko of the Week column about University of Colorado Professor Jerry Peterson, I chose the name of the column on a bit of a whim. I didn’t really expect that I would find that level of outrageousness on a weekly basis. But by now, you would think I would know better than to underestimate the ability of bureaucrats to make blindly stupid decisions. And that brings us to today’s story about 3-year-old Hunter Spanjer. Hunter is, by all reports, a happy and well-loved child who attends preschool in Grand Island Nebraska. Hunter...

A deaf three-year-old has been asked not to sign his name at school because it resembles a deadly weapon, according to 1011Now.com. “”It’s his name. It’s not like he’s going to bring a gun to school when he’s three years old,” Dana Schwieger told 1011Now.com. “Meantime, Hunter’s parents say that by Monday, lawyers from the National Association of the Deaf are likely to weigh in for Hunter’s right to sign his own name.” See the broadcast here: http://www.1011now.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=7652612.

A deaf 3-year-old from Nebraska is being asked by the school district to change his name, his family alleges, because the way he refers to himself in sign language resembles “weapons.” Apparently the Grand Island school district has a policy that prevents students from bringing “any instrument…that looks like a weapon” to school, and now hands can be considered “instruments.” “Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous. This is not threatening in any way,” Hunter Spanjer’s grandmother Janet Logue said. Brian Spanjer, the boy’s father, added: “It’s a symbol. It’s an actual sign, a registered sign,...

Vice President Biden in Danville, VA on 8/14: "I have more to say, but I am saying too much already because these guys get me going... and you're gonna have trouble translating all this! The poor lady, she's gonna have tendonitis by the time she finishes this."

KIRO TV’s investigative unit has discovered Tacoma police used force to arrest and handcuff an innocent deaf woman after she called 911 for their help. Instead of an apology, she ended up bloody and in jail for nearly three days without an interpreter before a prosecutor declined to press charges. After months of digging, investigative reporter Chris Halsne found significant discrepancies in the official police version of events leading up to Lashonn White’s arrest. Late in the evening on April 6, White said she called for police assistance after a guest reportedly attacked her in her own apartment. Deaf since...

I received this in an email this afternoon.......and it positively made my blood boil. "This one may turn your stomach........ Obama's Wife as Seen by Deaf People Obama and his wife were attending the 9/11 Memorial Ceremony and watched as the Color Guard folded the flag into a triangular shape, according to custom. A video camera caught the two from the sidelines. Obama's wife leaned over and said to him, " All this for a damn flag ?" Obama turned to her, smiled smugly and nodded his head in agreement.How do we know what was said? The video was presented...

Sloan Churman, 29, was born deaf and had never heard the sound of her own voice—until last week. Eight weeks ago, Churman underwent surgery for a hearing implant called The Esteem Implant by Envoy Medical. Though she'd been wearing hearing aids since the age of 2, she says they “only help so much.” She had her husband record the activation of the implant. We dare you not to break out into tears with her.

A miscommunication with a deaf person led police to erroneously believe a bomb threat was being made on a Metra train Monday night, leading to an emergency response, authorities said. Riverside police said this morning a Metra conductor flagged down a police officer at 8:12 p.m. and reported that a passenger had passed him a handwritten note saying there might have been a bomb on the train.