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<DIV>Please allow me to comment briefly on another aspect of this unfortunate
encounter: the reliability of eye-witness testimony and the nature of oral
history.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1. Each person sees activities within their own
perceptual and conceptual framework; the technical words for this
phenomenon are "perceptual set" and "conceptual set".
Basically this means is what each person senses and conceives when
they witness something is influenced by what they know from past experiences,
acquired knowledge, and by various emotive aspects of what they sense , i.e.
personal prejudices.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Some of those who took a philosophy class from me will remember the telling
experiment: A group of drama students would burst unannounced into the
classroom and perform some disruptive activity of short duration and then
leave. Students were asked to immediately write down what they
witnessed. Sometimes the incident was videotaped. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The results were astounding to most students as the accounts varied in
fundamental ways very greatly. Those that much later [see below] viewed
the video tape were even more astounded. Perhaps very disturbing was that
during the course of teaching classes and using this technique several law
enforcement officers were among the students. In general, their powers of
observation [and memory] were not any better than most other students.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>2. The original immediate memory of what was witnessed is
modified through time greatly by various kinds of post-processing; this
post-processing is again determined by prior personal experiences,
knowledge, prejudices, and memory decay. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>With respect to the experiment above, sometimes the whole class or selected
students were asked again to describe the incident several weeks later.
The later accounts were compared to the earlier ones. Astonishment (and a
great deal of denial from some students) occurred, especially when the accounts
were compared to the videotape of the incident. [Several students accused
me of altering the video tape just to make their perceptions/memories look
wrong; each of these insisted, however, the videotape was altered in a
different way from that which each of the other protestors insisted it was
altered.]</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There has been lots of work done on the problem of eye-witness
testimony. Those interested can Google '<FONT color=#0000ff>"eyewitness
testimony" reliability</FONT>' to access much further material.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Perhaps it is important to keep the above in mind in evaluating the
accounts of the incident at Archie's and the various discussions which have
ensued. Unless the incident was videotaped, it will be very difficult to
determine what really happened, although a skilled, careful investigator might
be able to isolate the parts of the differing accounts that agree and disagree,
and also isolate some of the factors that may help explain the different
viewpoints.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>For my part I am continually thankful when I see disabled persons,
especially those that need continual care just to perform the ordinary processes
of everyday life, that there are people who will patiently care for them, who
are tolerant of their disabilities, and also very thankful that I am not so
afflicted. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is a man now in Moscow who is not only wheelchair bound, but whose
mental abilities seem to have become greatly diminished. I am very,
very sad when I see him. When we first moved to Moscow over 17 years
ago, this man was a very bright, intelligent, charming, active, athletic, and
lively person. There for circumstances of life might be any of us, now or
in the future.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When dealing with persons with disabilities perhaps it is important to try
to see the world as they might, to try to understand the problems they face that
we don't, and to try to treat them with at least a little understanding and
compassion.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>Wayne A. Fox<BR>1009 Karen Lane<BR>PO Box 9421<BR>Moscow, ID
83843</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>(208) 882-7975<BR><A
href="mailto:waf@moscow.com">waf@moscow.com</A><BR></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=calebsomeone@yahoo.com href="mailto:calebsomeone@yahoo.com">Robbie</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, March 26, 2007 11:17 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] Archies on the Square</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR> Good morning all, I got the following email this morning
and thought that I would share it with you all. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><><><><><><><><><><></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Verdana size=2>I'm sending this to friends I believe have a bit
of activist in them, in hopes you might want to join us next Sunday around 9:00
a.m. <BR><BR>Here's the situation as written to me by Amanda, Tom's wife. " Tom
and Dan went to Archie's on the Square for breakfast last Sunday March 18, 2007,
when they were being escorted to their table, there was a gentleman who appeared
to be the cook, talking to a couple . Dan stopped and tapped him on the
shoulder, and began signing to him he was <BR>there to eat with Tom and was
excited about being there. The gentleman turned to Tom and said "can you take
care of this now" Tom went over and escorted Dan over to the table. When the
gentleman ended his conversation with the coulpe he then proceeded to tell Tom
"this is bad for my business my friend." Tom and Dan left and went and had
breakfast <BR>at The Breakfast Club. <BR><BR>After Dan and Tom finished
breakfast Tom decided to call Archie's to give the person the benefit of the
doubt that maybe he was just having a bad day. A woman answered and said Archie
was too busy and Tom explained why he was calling, explained to her about the
<BR>incident earlier and he was thinking about writing a letter to the editor.
She asked him to hold, went and got the owner, and it turned out that the same
person involved above was in fact the owner [the cook who had them leave]. Tom
went over the incident with this gentleman expressing how rudely Dan was treated
this morning. The gentleman said <BR>"your friend was the one who was rude, for
all I know he was drunk!" Tom said he was not drunk, he has a disability, the
owner said "then he should wear a damn sign around his neck to identify
himself." Tom then told him he had no choice but to write a letter to the editor
about the way he treats people with disabilities and he told Tom "I DON'T
<BR>GIVE A SHIT, WRITE TWO!" then hung up on Tom. <BR><BR>Tom let me know late
this last Friday that he and Dan were going back to Archie's on the Square
Sunday morning, taking a couple of signs and protesting the treatment of this
young man, hoping he would come out and apologize for his behavior. I joined
him, along with a few other friends. Archie stood inside his restaurant and
flipped us the bird, came out and told us we need to come back every Sunday, as
we'd really increased his business. So we'll go back next Sunday, but I'm sure
this time we'll be better organized, and we'll see if we can get a bigger show
of support from our community, see if we can get KLEW to come up, and see if
Evan will come from the radio station to cover it to get some exposure. We'll
also get a letter to the editor going, and I know Frank McGovern is working on
something for the Argonaut. <BR><BR>We talked with one of his waitstaff, who was
very upset saying "it this how you integrate people who have disabilites?" Later
she came back out to talk, calmed down, and realized this is an issue of
discrimination and human rights. She said in Archie's "defense" that he's 'old
and cranky, and from California where they don't have people who have
disabilities.' <BR><BR>What?? <BR><BR>Anyway, I hope you can come, and that
you'll spread the word. <BR><BR>You know how we love those windmills.
<BR><BR>Written by Tom Hopper, Amanda Hopper and Valerie Cutshall
</FONT><BR></DIV></DIV><BR>
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