As someone with divergent strabismus, I was rather disappointed to find people with visual impairments made the butt of a political joke in my local newspaper. I would like to urge you to write a letter to the editor of the austin american-statesman. The statesman is the most widely read newspaper in central texas.


An editorial by arnold garcia jr. In the editorial page (a15) of the austin american-statesman of saturday, 29 january 2005, carried an insensitive remark about people with visual disabilities.


Statesman.Com/opinion/content/editorial/01 /29garcia_edit.Html

(you will need to register with the statesman site to view the article.)

in particular, the comment I found insulting was this one: "dodging and ducking puts the governor in an awkward posture, one aggravated by having to keep one eye on newspaper headlines and another on the calendar. All that could give a give a guy a serious case of jack elam eyestrain."

the late jack elam was a character actor in numerous westerns and other movies. One of elam's eyes turned outwards and could even wander in its socket. Though the cause of his condition apparently was not congenital, elam looks like someone with divergent strabismus. According to one article, he was blind in the affected eye.


About jack elam:
Imdb.Com/name/nm0001181/
Cnn.Com/2003/showbiz/movies/10/22/obit.Ela m.Ap/

the print edition of saturday's statesman carried side-by-side photos of governor perry and jack elam. The caption beneath the images reads, "keeping one eye on the legislature and one eye on the opposition might give gov. Rick perry, left, a walleyed jack elam look."

i don't know about y'all, but I consider the term "walleyed" offensive.





mr. Garcia has written about racial discrimination in the past, so I would not want to insult him publicly. However, I consider his remark insensitive and indecent, and I would like to ask that others join me in asking for his apology. Preferably the apology will be printed as prominently as the original editorial.


Mr. Garcia's comments do not represent the attitude of the people of austin, texas, home for a school for the blind and a city known for its tolerance.


- gary
austin, texas

(i used proper capitalization above, but for some reason many caps were converted to lower case.)