Fwd: FW: Fw: Great Jag-offs of History

Yeah, I hate forewards, but this was kinda interesting. Bonus points if you kind find out if this is true. I'd be interested in what you guys think.

--Forwarded Message Attachment--
From: CRobbins@100AW.net
To: (Robb Digman)
Subject: FW: Fw: Great Jag-offs of History
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 09:23:48 -0600

Thought you'd be interested in this, most of it seems true if not all and you you never know...... Chris



From: PBear@HUNY.services.net
Sent: Tuesday, December 2, 2008 6:49 AM
To: CRobbins@100AW.net
Subject: Fwd: Fw: Great Jag-offs of History





---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rob.IT@30AW.net
Date: Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 7:32 AM
Subject: Fw: Great Jag-offs of History
To: Tger@Bounce.com, PBear@HUNY.services.net, RU@gmail.com, E.Ore@100AW.net, OWL@100AW.net



Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 5:47 PM

Subject: Great Jag-offs of History

Open your purse, look in your pocket, or tap mindfully on the black piece of plastic on your desk you call your phone right now. The thing that ties us all together has come a long way since it's inception. Cumbersome beasts, tethered by giant rolls of nylon-clad copper, to little plastic monsters behest of space magic we know today, the telephone has come a long way since the early days. When one Alexander Graham Bell was trying to develop a text to speech device for his deaf wife. Just a "parlor trick" The very speech minded Bell was trying to create, in order to tell his very deaf wife what to do, since, she couldn't hear the telegraph he used to communicate from his lab. The image that Bell was trying to create a "Great long distance communication device" was just a myth, propagated by AT&T lawyers and history. Had it not been for Bell's own wife, who insisted he keep working on his electronic "honey do" list, would have been a much different story. In essence, your phone is the culmination of one man's will to tell his deaf wife what to make him for dinner and the greed that came from it.

Bell was an inventor, that much is true. Creating a grain huller at 12, making an artificial head and voice box around sixteen. He was a genius, that much is true. He was teaching vocal courses in return for schooling and board at sixteen as well, becoming an expert in his family's deep interest in "Elocution", the study of proper speech and diction. Or a gentlemanly way of saying the one true way to communicate. Think about that statement as it seems to sow the seeds of what's to come later on.

Bell was obsessed with the telegraph, installing a telegraph line from his home to a friend's in college, he became obsessed with the transmission of sound over electricity. He even created a piano that could transmit notes over distance for others to hear. He eventually became credited with a method to transmit multiple telegraphs over the same copper lines which streamlined and sped up the abilities of the telegraph system of his time. One day, while trying to develop a way to take spoken words using the "Elocution" method and turn them into a written character, he realized carbon reeds under current could possibly transmit sound very similarly to a telegraph pulse. His investors from the telegraph companies took notice and saw similarities to several other inventors they were trying to commission for a new "modern" telegraph system. On valentines day, 1876, one of these inventors(Elisha Grey) filed a patent with the US patent office for a telephone design using water and electricity. Several hours later Bell's patent lawyer filed a very similar patent which was pressed through the patent system in an unprecidented(even in this day) three weeks, effectively beating Grey's patent. In fact when Bell uttered the famous "Mr Watson — Come here — I want to see you" into the first phone handset, it was into a water receiver based upon Grey's design that never was used in any public demonstrations past that point.

Bell, when he wasn't "inventing" was mainly driven by his desire to teach others how to communicate. Helping people with lisps, deaf-mute's, and other speech impediments. According to the orthodoxy of Elocution anyone of good mind and ability was able to learn the methods and become a productive member of society. Helen Keller was even among his pupils, but broke away when his methods were not suitable for her purposes. In fact even though Keller was once quoted as saying Bell dedicated his life to the penetration of that "inhuman silence which separates and estranges." he was reported to have said Keller "...was not of the proper stock for Elocution methods, and hopefully can fulfill a lessor role in the machinery of man.".

Bell, like his father, eventually married one of his pupils. A young woman by the name of Mabel Lee Hubbard. A high functioning deaf who lost her hearing due to Scarlett fever. His own Mother was a victim of a degenerative hearing disease who went to his father for his knowledge in elocution. While both his mother and wife could speak and read lips due to their experiences as fully abled youths, Bell took them as the Gold standard for deafs, and believed they were shining examples as to why Deaf people should all be able to speak, and communicate with others as well as any other human being. Any other deaf person who could not rise to the levels presented by these women were most likely not of a proper mental ability and should not be allowed to marry, reproduce, or become productive members of society.

Bell's hypocritical disgust at deaf and hearing people intermarrying was so strong (as well as his racism, classicism, etc. that was common of the era) that he became the Chairman of the Board of Scientific Directors of the Eugenics Record Office. Which was cited by the rising NAZI party in their legislation policies against deaf, blind, physically/mentally disabled (as well as Jews, Poles, etc). The National Geographic magazine was even a publication began by Bell and some of the members of his group of industrialist society members. It is still ran by his descendants and at one time publicly advocated (and some say, still does advocate) various forms of "contraception" as the best way to "help" displaced ethnic/social groups of people around the world.

Bell's schools of the deaf (his first line of his defense against the deaf creating their own culture and not integrating into society to paraphrase Bell) even in today's times do not allow ASL to be used, discourage the usage of ASL in the home, and lie to hearing parents of deaf children that deaf kids using ASL "will never learn to speak" because ASL "makes kids lazy.". Most Deaf kids, as a result, even today, do not learn ASL or anything of Deaf culture until they rebel in high school or university. Mostly due to their parents not allowing them to learn it because Audiologists and Oralist educators are convinced deaf kids shouldn't use sign, and worried, scared parents believe the first opinion they get.

In closing, don't believe everything you read. While the surface may appear to be completely altruistic, a darker undertone may possibly become revealed. History is always written by those that win, who all too frequently end up being thieving, elitist, proto-nazis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell
http://www.pbs.org/weta/throughdeafeyes/deaflife/bell_nad.html
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/image_header.pl?id=1440&detailed=0
http://podblanc.com/eugenics-article-1912-national-geographic