Tuesday Topics has been planning for quite a long time to do a whole show on cruising and that will happen before the end of the Summer. For now, though,

we thought it might be fun to do a show about traveling as a person who is blind. We hope that old hands will talk about getting ready for convention travel. We hope that guide dog users will tell folks what preparations they make before convention. Are there things folks should remember to take with them to convention that we might not think about. Are there things we should know about how to deal with assistance at air ports? I now use a wheel chair when I go through air ports. This has nothing to do with my visual impairment, however. Are folks taking trains or fuses these days. What can you tell us about those forms of transportation and getting the assistance we may need? I think the whole crew will be with us next week but I will actually be in the midst of a cruise to Bermuda. I expect to be good to go but, just in case I am not, others will cover for me.

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Isolation, technology and COVID are discussed. The impact of the way our lives have changed because of technology is the central concern of this week's Tuesday Topics. And it may well be that the problem we discuss have gone on for a much longer time than the point that the covid pandemic arrived. Technology has allowed us to get to lots of information on the internet. It has allowed us to make "friends" on facebook, Twitter, Clubhouse, Mastonon and via email and messaging. Suddenly, we have access to a whole "community" that we can become a part of and where we can "belong". Certainly there are good things about the new state of the situation. Many people who are blind have a place where they can feel valued and important. Before the technology reached out to include us, we would get together face to face and play games, share food and drink and even "hugs". Are people who are blind becoming more isolated because of their connection to the internet? What do we lose by not getting together in person? Should we attempt to do anything about the situation? If so, what? What are the advantages of the new connectedness? Do they outweigh our concerns?

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As often seems

to happen with our program, we only got one of our two major issues covered this time. So our next program will look at how the various notions of information affect the field of blindness! It is a little frightening to suggest that that the field of blindness and visual impairment is rife with misinformation. But why should we expect anything else? ACB and NFB have their own versions of truth! Agencies may want to emphasize elements that do not paint as clear a picture of the services they provide that they might! How do we explore what is true in the blindness field? All of us want to find ways to make our point of view seem stronger! We are not purposely propagating disinformation but we are certainly selectively choosing the facts and arguments that bolster our notions of what is right and good. Does ACB have propaganda? What's it like? How about other organizations? What might their predilections in terms of information look like? We hope that many listeners will want to help us explore how we protect the truth and learn to think critically! Propaganda is the subject of our next Tuesday Topics show! Help us explore what the truth is about blindness!

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We are going to explore a question that may seem beyond the scope of our program. Over the past few months we have spent quite a lot of time discussing

chat bots. Recently we have seen lots of evidence that they can get things amazingly wrong in terms of information. Our friend Jonathan Mosen reported that he and his partner Bonnie were described as having been married for the past thirty years. This is certainly not true but it highlights that there is another element of our lives where misinformation can happen, whether intentionally or not. At the same time, there are news stories that indicate that actors from China and Russia have flooded our mass media with disinformation about the arraignment of Donald Trump aimed at deepening the division within the United States. Obviously, in general, it is very difficult to know what is true and what is not. What can we do to make it less likely that we will spread information that isn't true? How do we know that what we read and hear and see is true? Do we on Tuesday Topics have responsibilities? What are they? It is a little frightening to suggest that that the field of blindness and visual impairment is rife with misinformation. But why should that topic be off limits? ACB and NFB have their own versions of truth! Agencies may want to emphasize elements that do not paint as clear a picture of the services they provide that they might! How do we explore what is true in the blindness field? All of us want to find ways to make our point of view seem stronger! We are not purposely propagating disinformation but we are certainly selectively choosing the facts and arguments that bolster our notions of what is right and good. Does ACB have propaganda? What's it like? How about other organizations? What might their predilections in terms of information look like? We hope that many listeners will want to help us explore how we protect the truth and learn to think critically! Chat Bots, bad actors and propaganda are the subject of our next Tuesday Topics!

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How well did voting work last year at ACB? What changes, if any, can we look forward to this year? How did people vote who were at the convention? Did

many need assistance? How did affiliate voting work? Are there going to be any changes in how affiliates vote this year? What do we know about who voted? Everybody voted digitally. We know that but what proportion of the vote was done by folks who were at the convention and what proportion of the vote came from those who were not there? Can we even tell? Are there ways we can encourage more voters? Will we have a candidates' forum this year? How about candidates' pages? Will there be any changes there? All of these questions will help us have a sense of where we are at a process which is still pretty new for ACB! Voting privately and independently is an important new characteristic of ACB elections. How has the new voting system affected elections? When elections only included people who attended conventions, there were expectations about how things would go. What are the expectations that the new election system creates? Members of the voting task force will be our guests next week. We don't know just who will join us from that group but believe that two or three of the members of that committee will be with us. We are looking forward to hearing from them and to an open discussion of what the new normal look like. You, our listeners, will have a chance to ask questions and to share your impressions of how things went last year and what we can expect this year.

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Don't miss a chance to choose from three issues!

Several weeks ago Tuesday Topics asked all of you to come up with subjects for us. However, we indicated that we would put together a series of topics in case our listeners did not come up with discussion issues. We did not have to use those ideas then so we will now offer three of them for this week's Tuesday Topics.

1. What piece of technology would you most like to see that doesn't currently exist? Others tell us by the technology they make available what we can have! I do not know of any company who has asked folks what they really want! Tuesday Topics is asking you!

2. What new application or device have you started using over the past year and how has that been for you? Have you found the device or app meets your needs?

3. ACB says it is interested in receiving feedback from its members! Here is your chance! What activity or approach or initiative that you think ACB is not doing much about would you like the organization to pursue. Think out of the box! What do people who are blind need? What does the rest of the world need to know about blind people that ACB can tell them? These are three questions that we will explore on Tuesday Topics on Tuesday Topics on April 4 at 7 PM on ACB Media One!

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Remember to join us when David Trott is our guest on Tuesday Topics!During that period, we will invite David Trott to share with us a notion of where ACB

is financially and in terms of membership. During the in-person segment of ACB'S recent meetings in Alexandria Virginia those present were invited to talk about membership and money. That element was moderated (David Trott. We will explore what came out of that meeting. We will look at where ACB is in terms of money and will explore the trends in membership. Have state affiliates grown since the start of the pandemic? What about special interest affiliates? Have members-at-large become more important. What might the future of membership be like? Where does the money come from that makes our organization run? Is there a change in where our funds come from? Do we have more money than we used to have? David is our current treasurer and can give us a sense of where we are and where we might want to go?

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Ever since he was a student at university, Eric Bridges has been active in ACB. For much of his career he has worked for ACB. For the last several years

Eric has been ACB'S Executive Director. Virtually all the members of ACB are almost certainly aware that Mr. Bridges has been chosen to become the Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind. His last day at ACB will be March 21, a Tuesday. I was in DC last week end and asked Eric whether he would consider coming on Tuesday Topics to reflect on his time with ACB. Perhaps it is too early to talk about his role at the American Foundation for the Blind but we will certainly see what he can tell us about his plans. Obviously, all of you will have the opportunity to ask questions of Eric and may want to say some farewells to him. We are truly excited to have Eric be our guest on Tuesday Topics as, essentially, his final act as Executive Director of ACB. We are very much looking forward to an opportunity to hear Eric's notions about where ACB is, and whatever else he is minded to share.

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Some of our Tuesday Topics people have been in Washington over the last week. There were programs that were on in DC last Tuesday so we decided to step

aside for one week. We are back and feel like there are a number of topics which may be a part of our Tuesday. We have had a request from ACB'S Employment Committee to invite them to report on some of their activities. We now know they will join us during our second hour to tell us what they are up to. During our first hour we would like to give our listeners an opportunity to choose what we discuss. So join us and talk to us about an issue you believe deserves our attention. We have some thoughts about appropriate things to talk about but we will only use them if you fail us, listeners. We hope you will not!

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As often seems to happen, our program last week intended to cover

two topics but only got to one. That left the accessibility of large appliances as essentially undiscussed. On the last day of February, then, that will be our topic. Where are we with this issue? Historically, how did we handle access. How has the "internet of things" changed our situation. Does having an appliance that connects with the lady a or Google home or siri assure accessibility? What steps can we take when buying new appliances to be certain we can use all or most of their features? Where does braille fit into this mosaic? Are there still overlays? Do we seem to be moving forward or backward in terms of access to the internet of things? What can we do to assure that we are heard? We need to hear your experiences with new appliances. Have you had to pay more to get what you need? Have you been able to get what you need? Join us as we explore how stoves and refrigerators and air conditioners and washers and dryers and furnaces and security systems all stack up in today's economy.

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