Optical Dimensions is a Newsletter which has been designed to provide travel informa-tion and resources for blind people and individuals who are visually impaired. Information on books, travel opportunities, national and local opportunities, and materials which are readily accessible.

Campanian Enterprises, Inc. Travel Programs
Campanian Enterprises, Inc., specializes in travel programs for the Blind and Visually Im-paired. Our travel programs are designed to meet the specials needs of our travelers and to provide a rich educational experience unavailable on regularly scheduled sighted trips. Each travel program offers unique opportunities for tactile experiences; on-site lectures, readings and audio-description combined with music, enlarge the total sensory and intellectual enjoyment on our programs. Furthermore, our programs offer unique opportunities for relaxation and socialization. Sighted guides accompany all programs. Participants may be accompanied by their own sighted friends, colleagues or family members. There are still places available on our programs to Branson and Hawaii in Fall 1999. In this newsletter you will also find information about our two programs to Key West in January and February 2000.

(1) Branson: Music and Songs in the Ozarks. Dates: September 22-28, 1999.
This trip to Branson will include 6 shows and touring in the Ozarks. Among the shows will be the following: The Andy Williams Show, The Shoji Tabuchi Show, The Presley Jubilee Show, The Osmond Family Show, The Lawrence Welk Show, The Bobby Vinton Show. Also included are: Bonniebrook Park (Museum and Home of Rosie O’Neill, creator of the Kewpie Doll) and a variety of city tours of historic Branson. Accommodations: Grand Ramada Hotel. We are accepting reservations on this program until July 26th. After this date we will accept reservations only if space is available.

(2) Treasures of Hawaii: Paradise Island of the Pacific. Dates: October 11-18, 1999.
Hawaii has a special magic all its own. “The loveliest fleet of islands that lies an-chored in any ocean” wrote Mark Twain about his visit to Hawaii in the late 1800s. The  famous “Aloha Spirit” makes friends of strangers, melts cultural barriers and inspires understanding. First-time visitors will find Hawaii to be everything they dreamed it would be; those who return make new discoveries each time, yet are comforted by what remains unchanged. This program includes Oahu and Maui: sites visited include Hana Highway, La-haina, Haleakala, Diamond Head, Waikiki Beach, Polynesian Cultural Center and Pearl Harbor. And, of course, there will be the traditional Luau.
Deadline: August 18th. After this date we will accept reservations only if space is available.

Key West in the Winter.
To inaugurate the new Millennium, we will be offering a variety of travel programs to commemorate this new beginning. Our Millennial Year Travel programs will begin with the Key West trip. There will be two programs to Key West, each different and each designed to appeal to individual interests and desires. Key West, the southernmost city in the continental United States, was home at various times to Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams and Robert Frost and a White House vacation retreat for Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. Pirates frequented the seas around the Florida Keys and have left a rich history and colorful stories of adventure and romance. Historic gingerbread mansions, palm-studded streets, rocky shores, sandy beaches, hibiscus and bougainvillea enchant every visitor to this subtropical island where history lives, a carnival spirit entices and legendary sunsets are mesmerizing. There will be leisure time for relaxing and enjoying the sunny and the sea breezes. Registration Forms for both these programs are now available. Please request the forms for the programs in which you are interested.

Program #1: January 25- February 1, 2000.
This program will include visits to a variety of sites in Key West itself: Audubon House, Hemingway House, Truman White House and time at the beach. A day excursion to Dry Tortugas will be a special highlight of this week long program. Key West has a rich array of fine restaurants whose culinary delights we will enjoy. Relaxation and basking in the warm sunny weather will be the order of the day on this winter vacation in the southernmost area of the United States.

Program #2: February 1-7, 2000.
This program will include a selection of the famous homes and sites of Key West (listed above) but will offer participants the unique opportu-nity for extended activities: parasailing, deep-sea fishing, and ample time to enjoy the pleasures of  the beach. A day excursion to Dry Tortugas will offer the opportunity for snorkeling in the emerald green waters of the Gulf of Mexico. On this program we will also enjoy the delicious cuisine of Key West’s restaurants and feast on Key Lime pie.

For information and registration forms for our travel programs, please contact us by phone, e-mail or fax.

Additional programs for the Millennial year.
Please contact us if you are interested in any of the following programs for which itineraries will be available in early Fall:
(1) Tactile Washington in Cherry Blossom Time
(2) Glories of the Ohio River Valley: From Cincinnati to Louisville
(3) Hawaii — From Waikiki to Kuai
(4) New Orleans: Bourbon Street Adventures.
Additional programs under consideration are:
(1) Las Vegas: Gambling and the Arts of Ancient Rome
(2) San Francisco and Northern California.
Information about our weekend programs in New York will be printed in our August/September news-letter. e.g. “Talking Books and the Side Walks of New York City” and “Sleepy Hollow and Washington Irving.”

A Request — if you find articles or information which you think would be useful and interesting for printing in Optical Dimensions, please e-mail, fax or send copies to us (including the relevant source information). We are always on the look-out for information of interest to our readers and subscribers.

Fine Dining in New York — Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York has been the location of many famous dinners. Amongst the famous who have eaten in this restaurant are: Charles Dickens, Lillian Russell, PT Barnum, Diamond Jim Brady, President Lincoln, President Johnson, President Grant. Delmonicos’ is cherished by the “bulls and bears” of Wall Street; politicians, merchants, and judges dine here as well. And so, it was at Delmonico’s that the participants on the Campanian Enterprises’ Little Italy and Gourmet Dining trip (sponsored by Campanian Enterprises) began their tour of New York (being house luxuriously in the world famous Waldorf Astoria where breakfast was taken every morning in Oscar’s Restaurant).
 As we entered Delmonico’s we passed between the marble pillars of the porch. These pillars are the first feature to strike the visitor; they are as marvelous today as they were when they stood in the doorway of a Villa in Pompeii (Italy). Above the pillars on the lintel is the name “Delmonico.” The structure is three and one half stories high, made of brick and brownstone with marble trim.
 The service was splendid. The waiters noiseless as images in a vision — no hurry-scurry of preparation. The dishes succeed each other with a fidelity and beauty like the well composed tones of a painting or a symphony. It was a brilliant overture to the noble opera henceforth to be played throughout the evening. When Charles Dickens dined at Delmonico’s in 1862,  the dinner was a gastronomical-literary celebration: he had soup named for Dumas; chopped lamb for Walter Scott; grouse for Fenimore Cooper; consommé Sevigne; timbales for Dickens. There was a Temple of Literature decorating the table made of eggwhite, gum arabic and confection’s sugar. The tables were magnificent, with the most consummate commingling of flowers and confections. Connoisseurs in these things declared that the display surpassed anything in the history of banquets. It certainly did in the ingeniousness of designs. Confections were converted into . . . . tempting pictures of the most familiar characters of the great novelist. Sugar was not ashamed to imitate him, and even ice-cream had frozen into solid obeisance, Sairy Gamp and Betsy Frig and Poor Joe and Captain Cuttle blossomed out of charlotte russe, and Tiny Tim was discovered in paté de foie gras. . . . Not only did [Delmonico] make it a Dickens dinners, he made it a dinner
of Dickens.
 The Delmonicos dinner for Campanian Enterprises participants on the New York program was a Dickens of a dinner — equally splendid and sumptuous. Superbly roasted lamb, Delmonico’s Steak, fresh fish and Baked Alaska (invented at Delmonico’s) pleased the palates. Champagne finished the dinner with a toast to our gracious hosts for a wonderful evening of dining. And then, it was into our stretch limousine which was waiting for us after the gastronomical delight to carry us back to the Waldorf-Astoria (where kings and queens and presidents have made their
home).
 In the 19th century the following sentiment described a dinner at Delmonico’s: “To dine at Delmonico’s ...... two things are requisite — money and French. Of the latter little will answer; but the more you have of the former the better off you are, as well at Delmonico’s as elsewhere.” We will have another New York tour with an equally splendid gourmet fare. Watch for details in a future issue of Optical Dimensions.

Special Information and Resources:
BLIND-TRAVEL List (blind-travel Blindness-related travel issues and recommendations)
 In the April/May Optical Dimensions we printed information about the Blind-travel List. This blind-travel list will be a welcome resource for sharing and posting information about travel opportunities, discussion of books on travel, local travel information and resources. Please join this list and contribute to its success. The list owner is Lisa Carmelle; her e-mail address is: lcarmelle@NTWRKS.COM
 The following subscription information gives details about how to join and participate in BLIND-TRAVEL list:
Write to listserv@softcon.com
In the body of the text write: subscribe blind-travel First name Last name.
You will receive a confirmation message and you only have to reply with ok in the text only.  Provided your mail program is a standardized one you should be able to just hit the reply to the confirmation message and make sure there is no quoted text but include only "ok" without the quotes. Please feel free to share information about BLIND-TRAVEL with your friends and colleagues. Please help to make this list a valuable and important resource for anyone interested in travel opportunities and
resources.

The Braille Crisis.
The following selections from two recent articles about Braille are of considerable interest and will no doubt provoke discussion: an article by Jeannie Marshall appeared in the National Post — a Canadian newspaper;  Stephen Kuusisto’s article appeared in the New York Times Magazine.

How Good Intentions Created the Braille Crisis (by Jeannie Marshall).
At a time when technology has actually made it more accessible than ever, Braille, one a blind person’s only access points to the written word, is waning. The reasons for its decline are many, and the implications for Braille illiteracy enormous. The figure most often cited in North America is that only 10% of blind people are Braille literate. Figures from the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind (NFB) show that in 1968 40% of blind children read Braille and in 1993 only 9% could read it. There are no reliable Canadian statistics, but the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) indicates that the figures are likely similar for Canada.
 The NFB has stated that the United States is facing a Braille literacy crisis. And Darleen Bogart, the past president of the Canadian Braille Authority and a volunteer at the CNIB, says it is something of a crisis in Canada as well: “In the days of the segregated school system, blind kids automatically went off to residential schools for the blind. They had teachers who knew Braille and they were taught to read it,” says Bogart. In the last 20 years, most of those residential schools in North America have closed, and blind children have been integrated into the regular school system.
 “There was a philosophy when integration first came in that whatever vision a child had, that vision should be utilized. So if they could see a little, they weren’t taught Braille,” say Bogart. This meant that few legally blind children are instructed in Braille unless the parents push for it. And even in the United States, where 30 states have recently passed legislation that is supposed to ensure that blind children are taught Braille, parents still have to insist on it. “The problem is there may be no one in that school district who knows Braille, or, more likely, there is some but she’s already trying to teach 35 children,” says Barbara Pierce, a spokeswoman for the NFB.
 The other problem is that many parents resist Braille for their children. Blindness is rarely total darkness; often legally blind children have residual vision, which means they can learn to read using large print and a magnifying glass. If the child can read at all, parents are inclined to teach him or her to read print. “A lot of parents think that when you acknowledge Braille, you’ve acknowledged that your child is blind and can’t see,” says Bogart. . . .
 The unemployment rate for blind people is about 75%. Bogart explains that the rate is so high because it is difficult for people who have lost their sight later in life to retrain quickly and return to work. But among Braille readers, the unemployment rate is only 6%. “If you are literate and you are a Braille reader, you are going to have a much better chance of being successful in higher education and in getting a job,” says Bogart. (Selections of this article reprinted from National Post).

In the Dark: Braille is being replaced by reading machines. Is this good? (by Stephen Kuusisto, author of “Planet of the Blind: A Memoir”).
If you’re like most folks with good eyes, you’ve probably examined the Braille in hotel elevators. You may even have touched the raised dots signifying your floor and marveled at the capacity of the blind to travel and read in the dark. Who would imagine that Braille would be supplanted by machines? Who would guess that Braille is even now nearly extinct?
 Approximately 10 percent of the blind read Braille today, a fact that has many blind advocates worried. Computerized reading machines are taking the place of Louis Braille’s tactile reading system. Braille will soon be as foreign to the blind as hieroglyphs are to us.
 I have on my desk a machine called “The Reading Edge.” It resembles a desktop copier, and it translates printed pages into synthetic speech. I need this gadget because I’m a blind man who can’t read Braille. Its voice is pure sci-fi, but I’ve grown immensely fond of its intonation. It reads robotically. It sweats through the prosody of George Herbert. Sometimes it spells words aloud if the software can’t identify them.
 The truth is, synthetic readings is a trial. I must wait for the scanner to decode each page. This gives me time to wonder if I’m reading at all. Many blind people argue that machine reading is really illiteracy: by relying on microchips or audiotapes, the blind become dependent. According to them, I’m illiterate. It makes no difference that my own written work has been translated into a dozen languages. Because my words are mediated, I’m nothing more than a helpless listener. Braille, on the other hand, gives the blind instant contact with language. No batteries are required.
 “Yes,” says the machine man, “but Braille is manufactured by paid Braillists, and this takes time. I’ve already devoured this week’s New Yorker. Did you see that piece by Calvin Trillin on fat-free truffles?”
 “You’re a slave,” says the Braille man.
 “Yes, I am” the machine man answers, “but I’m a slave on his way to Balducci’s for fat-free truffles. Come on, Fido.”
 If I really think about it, between bites of my truffle, I must admit that I have great sympathy for the Braille man’s view. As a poet, I admire location and pressure in language. . . . . Unfortunately, I have to listen to poetry by means of silicon. And more and more blind people are just like me. Nowadays most blind children go to public schools and don’t learn Braille. In a digital way, why waste resources teaching something so outdated? Besides, Braille is cumbersome. An average Braille edition of a book looks like a sofa cushion. Compare that to a 3 1/2-inch floppy disk. . . . I sit in the garden and finger a sleeve of fallen birch bark. Can I distinguish it from the bark of a holly tree? Can I distinguish one orange from another through acquisitive touching? To learn Braille in your 40’s you must refresh the very infancy of touching and recharge your hands. Braille can’t be learned like Berlitz Spanish. You have to think with your skin.
 The poet Charles Olson imagined that our tissues and organs can think. Sitting beneath the trees I settle for one thinking index finger. I’m going to read Walt Whitman in the dark, without batteries.
(Reprinted from New York Times Magazine).

Sony Unveils Robot Dog.
This dog is already housebroken. It doesn't need expensive shots or food. And whenever you're tired of playing with it you can just hit the pause button. Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. will start selling a robot dog called AIBO in early July. It says the "beast" is smart enough to do a few tricks and can even let you know when it is happy. About the size of a Chihuahua, the robotic canine has sensors in its paws and an antenna-like tail. And for a machine, it's pretty smart. A camera and infrared sensor help the battery-powered judge distances and detect objects so it doesn't walk into walls. AIBO, which means “pal” in Japanese, is programmed to enjoy getting a petting, and through a sensor on its head can tell the difference between a friendly pat and a scolding slap. AIBO will sell for $2,500, though the Internet only.
(Reprinted from AP).

The Robotic Guide Cane: Will It Replace The Guide Dog?
The guide dog has long been a reliable way for the blind to get around. Although a simple cane will suffice for many sight-impaired people, man’s best friend has proven to be an excellent tool for navigation — as well as companionship. Recently, however, a new aid for the blind has surfaced. Although it may never totally replace the dog guide, the electronic GuideCane is a simple navigation device developed by Johann Borenstein, an associate research scientist in the Department of Mechanical and Applied Mechanics at the University of Michigan. . . . The GuideCane has the appearance of a skinny upright vacuum cleaner. It runs on batteries, weighs eight pounds, and contains 10 ultrasonic sensors that send out signals in order to detect obstacles and steer the user around them. This robot-on-wheels is made up of three parts: the handle, the cane’s head and a set of unpowered steering wheels located beneath the head. A set of 10 ultrasonic sensors is placed in a semicircle around
the Guide-Cane’s head, each one looking in a different direction. These sensors are like small loud speakers, each sending an ultrasound beep, which travels like a sound wave. When this beep hits an object in front of it, it is reflected back to the sensor — so that same sensor which sent out the beep then hears its echo.
 An on-board 486 Cyrex computer sits inside the GuideCane’s head and analyzes the data from the sensors. This computer creates a rudimentary map of its surrounding from the information it is fed. For example, each sensor tells the computer it has detected a chair 3 ft. in front of it. The computer draws itself a map and then computes a path around the chair.
 Once the computer calculates a path around the chair, it sends this message to the steering wheels, which are propelled by a servo motor — the same motor found in most remote control cars. This is attached to the steering wheel by a small lever underneath the head. It’s important to remember that the GuideCane is not motorized, so someone must push it for any of this to work. The wheels will change direction on command of the computer. Unlike other systems currently available and those still in the design stage, the movements of the GuideCane can be felt through the handle and directional changes are completed faster and more reliably.
 Because the GuideCane is inherently simple, there’s no training involved. Just grab the handle, walk, and if the cane changes directions, you’ll know something’s in front of you. Unlike other navigational tools, the GuideCane’s lack of complexity makes it easy to use. . . .
 Professor Borenstein admits the technology is only halfway there but predicts that some fine day the GuideCane will do what no German shepherd ever could. Thanks to the new global-positioning systems just coming on the market — which can pinpoint locations relative to your position — the GuideCane won’t just take you to the bus stop, it will know where the bus stop is. When will this product be available? It is hoped the GuideCane will be commercially available within three years at a cost of around $4,000 — still far below the cost of a guide dog.
(Reprinted from Vision Enhancement, Vol. 3, No. 3).

Tactile Maps:
Very useful tactile maps of Individual U.S. States are available from Princeton Braillists. The following are available: Florida, 12 full-page maps with keys; New York, 13 full-page maps with keys; Pennsylvania, 9 full-page maps with keys; Vermont, 9 full-page maps with keys. Cost of each booklet is $6.00 including shipping by
free-mail. Send check or money order to: Princeton Braillist, 28-B Portsmouth Street, Whiting, New Jersey 08759-2049. Telephone: (732) 350-3708 or (609) 924-5207.

The Poetry and Book Corner. Request for help.
The following poetic verses have been submitted to us with the request for information about their source and author. If you have any information, please let us know:

No language first was spoken
But the language of the eyes
Until its charm was broken
By time in paradise.

The following companies publish books in large print. Call for catalogue or to request a book:
 (1) Chivers North America, 1 Lafayette Road, PO Box 1450, Hampton, NH 03842. Telephone: (800) 621-0182. Fax: (603) 929-3890.
(2) G.K. Hall and Company, 200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, NJ 07675. Telephone (800) 223-2348.
(3) Grey House Publishing Company, 8 Holly Street, PO Box 1958, Lakeville, CT 06039. Telephone: (800) 562-2139. Fax: (860) 435-0867.
(4) Random House Large Print, 201 East 50th Street, New York, NY 10022. Telephone: (800) 726-0600. Fax: 212) 872-8026.
(5) Simon and Schuster Publishing, 200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, NJ 07675. Tele-phone: (800) 223-2348. Fax: (800) 445-6991.
(6) Ulverscroft Large Print Books, Ltd., 1881 Ridge Road, PO Box 1230, West Seneca, NY 14224. Telephone: (800) 955-9659. Fax (716) 694-4195.
(7) Reader’s Digest, Large Edition for Easier Reading, PO Box 368, Mt. Morris, IL 61504.

Brief History Lessons
June and July are wonderful months for Roman festivals. Juno, the wife of Jupiter, is honored on the first day of the month in her temple on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. She is honored as “Juno the Warner” because it was her sacred geese in the temple who were said to have wakened the Roman sentries and saved the Capitol from the attack of the Gauls in 390 BCE. On June 3rd, Bellona (goddess of war) was honored. In front of her temple in the Circus Flaminius was a small pillar on which her priests
stood and threw spears into the ground when the Roman Senate declared war. (Imagine American senators standing on the steps of the Capitol in Washington and doing this!). On June 9th, the rites of Vesta (the goddess of the hearth) were celebrated. During the festival in her honor, Vesta’s priestesses (called Vestals) were not allowed to cut their hair and pare their nails. The Vestals, good home-makers, baked little cakes and offered them to Vesta. June 23rd was a Dies Ater (a black day) in the Roman calendar. On this day in 217 BCE, Hannibal, after marching over the Alps, defeated the Romans in a great battle at Lake Trasimenus in northern Italy. Han-nibal marched through the swamps of the Arno River and surprised the Roman consul, Flaminius, on the banks of Lake Trasimenus. It was on this march that Hannibal lost the sight of one eye.
 July is the month of Julius Caesar after whom the month is named. On July 6th, the Romans celebrated a holiday festival called: “The Games of Apollo.” The games honoring Apollo were instituted in 212 BCE as a result of reversals in the war with Hannibal. The Apollo Games included feasting, public athletic shows and  theatrical events. July 12 (or maybe the 13th) was the date on which Julius Caesar was born in 102 BCE. Though belonging to an old patrician family, Caesar was associated from
the beginning with the popular party; he married Cinna’s daughter and his aunt was the wife of Marius (the great Roman military general). Caesar’s accord with Pompey and Caesar, the so-called First Triumvirate, brought him to the consulship in 59 BCE and his subsequent military campaigns in Gaul. Caesar defeated (and killed) his arch enemy, Pompey, at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BCE. Caesar become dictator in 48 BCE; he was, however, killed on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. His career put an end to the Roman Republic and laid the foundations of monarchy and the Roman Empire. On July 23rd, the rites of Neptune, the god of the waters, were celebrated. At the Neptunalia, the celebrants protected themselves from the sun by building little huts made of tree branches. (All this makes a whole lot of sense, if one is in heat of Italy on July 23rd and notes the thousands of Romans who flee the city of Rome and spread themselves under umbrellas on the beaches south of Rome!). Clearly there is much truth in these mythic Roman stories.

Travel Agencies.
To assist and support your travel arrangements (land, air, train and travel programs), the following travel agents will be able to assist you with efficiency and special attention to your needs.

Accessible Adventures.
This unique travel company is designed to level the playing field for tourists, sightseers and travelers with a wider variety of physical challenges. Contact: Bill Elliot, Accessible Adventures, PO Box 888, Waitsfield, VT 05673. Telephone: (802) 496-2252, (888) 880-0222); Fax: (802) 496-4381. E-mail: belliott@madriver.com  Web Site: http://www.accessibleadventures.com

Travel Four, 482 Notch Rd., West Paterson, NJ 07424 Contact person: Toni Villano. Telephone: (877) 812-4949. Fax: (973)-812-4940.

Access Aloha, 414 Kiuwili St., Suite 101, Honolulu, HI 96817. Contact person: Judy Heller. Telephone (800) 480-1143. Fax: (808) 545-7657. TTY/TTD: 521-4400.

Mid-Atlantic Receptive Services. PO Box 4530, Arlington, VA 22204. Contact person: Kate Scopetti. Telephone: (800) 893-5806. Fax: (703) 271-4436.

Campanian Enterprises, Inc. Customized Programs.
If you are interested in a special program for a small group (4-6 persons) or for larger
groups interested in travel, please contact. We are able to provide you with all services to make your travel as easy and pleasurable as possible. If your have any questions or comments, please contact us at:

Campanian Enterprises, Inc.
Box 167
Oxford, Ohio 45056
Telephone: (513) 524-4846
Fax: (513) 523-0276
E-mail: campania@one.net
Website: http://www.campanian.org

Latin Quote for the Day from Vergil: Amor omnia vincit. “Love conquers all.”