<Rant> I’m sure everyone knows by now that Vicky (my fiance) is blind, and that I can get touchy about the ways in which some people buy into the myths and misunderstandings about blindness. At the risk of being a bore, I’ll just briefly rehearse the familiar catalog of my feelings about this: We think that her blindness is fundamentally an inconvenience, which does not limit her ability to achieve things or to perceive things as much as you think it would. She knows who is attractive and who isn’t, who’s a man and who’s a woman, who is Asian and who is Black, who is sad and who is happy, who is derelict and who is neatly groomed. Blindness affects very little in terms of her ability to do things; it just changes the method. She sails, competitively. She downhill skis; she rides horseback; she plays baseball (and watches baseball games at the ballpark and on TV) she reads, she is a computer programmer, she has a Masters Degree, she is a psychotherapist. NONE of these facts are extraordinary, or signs of courage, or something to oooh and ahhh about. They are simple, quotidian facts and most blind people can and have accomplished the same sorts of things. She and they and I are sick of the idea that some sighted people have that these accomplishments are somehow special or heroic. They are not. Sighted people are trained to expect that it’s harder for a blind person. Not true. What is hard, is to be the victim of low expectations, which most blind people are. You imagine yourself trying to do something with your eyes closed, and you think, Oh, she could never do that. Well that’s not how it works. Being blind is not just subtracting a sense. Being blind is subtracting one sense, and then using many adaptations, skills, tools, etc. to compensate, thus making you quite competent. That blind person there does not need your help to cross the street or pour a cup of coffee or avoid tripping over the hose on the sidewalk. That blind person does need you to offer him or her a good job in his or her area of expertise, because most people won’t. </Rant>