Public Relations War on DVTV
The ongoing saga on DeafVideo.TV is a convoluted tale, beginning with AFA’s inception in early March, prompting Barry Sewell to accuse AFA of being an extension of DBC, which has been denied by both organizations.
This led to CherylfromMA and InsaneMisha, two prominent vloggers/commenters and strong supporters of Barry, to gradually over time, question his motives when it came to AFA and DBC. Barry’s comments increasingly turned personal and it was clear to observers that he was deliberately pushing people’s buttons to incite a reaction. CherylfromMA and InsaneMisha’s break from Barry, however, was not apparent until they attended the AFA rally against AG Bell on April 3, 2009, sending shock waves through the vlogosphere.
Afterwards, the lurkers, commenters and vloggers witnessed a vicious, tragic deterioration of Barry’s friendship with the two, particularly with CherylfromMA. One of the most stark examples of this rift is Cheryl’s video comment calling Barry a controller and a destroyer.
Despite this loss of support and friendship, Barry continued his ‘questioning’ of AFA and thier supporters, ultimately leading to more of the Signing Circle supporters to withdraw from him. Not surprisingly, AFA celebrated the defection of CherylfromMA, InsaneMisha and the others, which only led to Barry being further incited against the organization.
At this point, it seemed that AFA was winning the public relations battle on DVTV, due to Barry’s rapid loss of supporters and mass defections to AFA. Things took a twist however, when Cobi, Barry’s son created a vlog mocking AFA by using the Aflac duck commercials. That vlog can be found here.
At first, people thought it was Barry who created the vlog, but when it was revealed that it was actually his son, people were outraged. They could not believe that a fourteen year old would do this, solely on his own, as Cobi and Barry claimed. Many also viewed this as a perfect example of how prejudice comes into existence.
People at first engaged Cobi in a dialogue, particularly Ella Mae Lentz. However, this turned heated, when some of the commenters began telling Cobi that his father needed to grow up, that they found his family disgusting and so on, for allowing him to do this. One commenter even stated to Cobi that controlling parents can lead bright and mature children to kill them.
This led to some other commenters to call for a halt to this, since they felt this was bullying Cobi. The comments targeting Cobi slowly reduced after that, and Barry and Cobi remained steadfast, refusing to apologize or take down the vlog. This in turn, led to Aidan Mack creating a vlog discussing brainwashing, and in that vlog, she accused Barry of brainwashing his female followers. That vlog was then removed by Tayler, and Aidan uploaded the same vlog, only with the accusation against Barry edited out.
Aidan went on to accuse Tayler of censorship, prompting him to make this vlog, pointing out that only .09% of the vlogs, have been removed. Less than a half percent.
As things stand right now, the dispute between Barry and AFA continues with both sides pressuring Tayler to keep Aidan’s brainwashing vlog up, or to remove it. Tayler made another vlog here, discussing the pressuring emails.
Not only that, but Barry’s relentless questioning of AFA and DBC has led to public acknowledgment by Ella Mae Lentz and others that they do consider cochlear implants to be audistic. There’s a private sentiment amongst observers that this has turned into a televised Roman amphitheater, and I share that sentiment. However, I would not be surprised if someday, years from now, historians or anthropologists pieced together this saga into a documentary. On the surface, it might seem merely like a sordid public display of friendships being torn apart and personal vendettas and grievances…
But upon closer examination, one does realize that the current saga provides an unique insight into Deaf culture, deaf identity politics, audism and most of all, into the human psyche.
The Power of Twitter
The online store, Amazon.com is now embroiled in an intense controversy due to its labeling GLBT books as adult, effectively censoring these books. This tactic apparently began back in Feburary, and it wasn’t until this weekend, when Twitter bloggers took up the cause with the tag of #amazonfail, that Amazon.com declared it was a glitch and they’re supposedly investigating it now.
This kind of cyber-activism is right up the alley of the Deaf Community. We are well-versed in cyber-activism, as DeafRead’s official blog post stated. Imagine if we started to do more than just letting DeafRead link to us, but also started to link to each other’s blog posts, which would lead to our blog ranks increasing in many search engines, making us even easier to find.
Then we twittered about it with the right tags.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that DeafRead doesn’t do enough for the Deaf Community. However, if we truly want to effect social change as so many of us claim, we have to reach out beyond the borders of our community, to the masses.
Just like the GLBT community and their allies did on Twitter to take on Amazon.com and their shameful censoring of GLBT books. So what are we waiting for? *tweets*
A Cyberspace Riot on DeafVideo.TV
As I type this blog post, right now DeafVideo.tv [DVTV] is embroiled in a historic cyberspace protest/riot, which was prompted by Aidan Mack’s now infamous vlog where she discussed domestic violence, then accused Jerome Cain, a fellow vlogger and an ex of hers, of domestic violence. Jerome Cain had accused Aidan of having borderline personality disorder under a now removed vlog titled, ‘Is Aidan a Word Twister?’
Jerome Cain made a vlog in response to Aidan denying the accusation and repeated his accusation against her. No evidence supporting these accusations were given, which ignited a wave of outrage amongst many vloggers.
Tayler Mayer, the owner of both DeafRead and DeafVideo.tv is currently on a business trip, and he interrupted his trip to make a quick vlog, stating that he had discussed this matter with both Aidan and Jerome. Tayler requested that Jerome remove his, and that Aidan either edit her vlog to remove the accusation against Jerome, or to remove the vlog altogether. He also requested that Jerome and Aidan not respond to each other in any manner on DVTV, or they would be banned.
Jerome removed his vlog immediately. Tayler removed Jerome’s vlog, but did not remove Aidan’s vlog. Aidan did not remove her vlog immediately, which only increased the outcry. Then approximately 20 hours ago, Aidan finally removed the vlog and uploaded an edited version with the accusation deleted.
This has not satisfied many vloggers on DVTV, for a couple of reasons. Many of the vloggers feel that Aidan took far too long in removing her original vlog. Secondly, many feel that Aidan’s edited vlog now is too tainted given her conduct.
So now over a hundred vloggers are holding a cyberspace riot on DVTV. They are filming empty chairs, or showing a blackened out video. They are demanding that Aidan’s vlog be removed, and for Tayler to come back and respond to their concerns. Several individuals are also encouraing lawsuits against Tayler, Aidan and the Deaf Newspaper website who broadcast Aidan’s original vlog.
As a mere observer of this protest/riot, it’s hard for me to say what I think will be the outcome. While I think Aidan and the Deaf Newspaper should be held accountable for their actions if it is found that Aidan’s accusations against Jerome is false, Tayler should not be part of the lawsuit. Instead I think they should ask for a moderator who can delete inflammatory and possibly libelous vlogs when Tayler is unable to do so – like how it’s done on YouTube.
I’m also left pondering what kind of message this sends to the Deaf Community at large… I guess only time will tell just exactly what the outcome and overall message will be from this protest.
Addenum: I’ve just been told that Deaf Newspaper has removed Aidan’s vlog from their website.
Inside Cochlear Implant Online: Ethics?
The Link Between Cochlear Implant Online and C.A.N.
It is not precisely clear what skills C.A.N. is referring to in their FAQ, but when one looks at the Benefits section, the training aspects are outlined. Advocates share their stories, provide resources and so on. This appears to directly fit in what CIO is doing as a cochlear implant resource website. This leads one to easily think that the activities of CIO is solely for being part of the C.A.N. advocacy efforts especially considering the fact that both bloggers, Rachel and Elizabeth are C.A.N. volunteers, and Melissa, which could be arguably called the backbone of CIO, is a C.A.N. volunteer as well. This makes a total of three C.A.N. volunteers involved with CIO.
But could all of this just be a coincidence? That’s difficult to say. Note that Melissa writes, (comment #25), “Therefore, she gets absolutely no compensation from Cochlear for her volunteer work.” But she didn’t state whether CIO was part of their volunteer activities for C.A.N. or not.
Melissa in her comment (#151) writes, “My hope is that Rachel’s generation forward will be able to transcend this bitterness. She put her blog up on DeafRead to show others what is possible today. Whether or not DeafRead reinstates her blog, she’ll still be online just as she was for 7 years before she put her website on DeafRead. Parents will find her, and then they will find only her and so will only hear what she has to say. By booting her from DeafRead, the editors have shot themselves in the foot, for when parents found Rachel’s blog on DeafRead, they found all points of view in one place. Now, instead, they will only find Rachel’s.” [Emphasis added]
There is no way to pinpoint just how active CIO was active before 2006, since like stated previously, the archives only go back to 2006. When one looks through the archives, there is only one entry in the year of 2006.
Then in the year of 2007 there are only four posts. That brings the total of CIO’s entries prior to joining DeafRead in January 2008, to a grand total of five posts. Now, after joining DeafRead, and before being forcibly inactivated by DeafRead, CIO had one hundred three posts on DeafRead in the span of almost five months. That averages to seventeen posts per month.
Just a mere coincidence there?
The Question of Companies and Their Marketing Ethics
Now, there are some who argue that everyone who read CIO and the DR Team should have known C.A.N. was owned by Cochlear Americas because it’s obvious to them. However, if one looks at the C.A.N. website, in my opinion, it is not immediately apparent that this is owned by Cochlear Americas. The website has a garish background, cheap formatting and numerous typos within the FAQ and elsewhere. While there is a link to Cochlear Americas, there is no statement on C.A.N’s website that they are owned by Cochlear Americas. One has to go to the Cochlear website to see that in fact, Cochlear Americas owns C.A.N. The network happens to be also mentioned in Cochlear Americas’ 2007 annual report.
It goes without saying that C.A.N. being managed by a for-profit company that sells the very product that the network advocates for, Cochlear Americas and the rest of the cochlear implant industry can only stand to benefit from it. It is highly dubious that C.A.N. advocates would present any facts that would cast nothing more than a positive light on CI products.
These actions lead to the question of whether CIO and C.A.N. are engaging in the practice of stealth marketing, which is generally considered to be unethical. From the Advertising and Marketing Bulletin, Stealth marketing, a subset of word-of-mouth marketing (”WOMM”) strategies, is marketing that promotes a product without disclosing any direct connection between the advertiser and the message. [Emphasis added]
Not Only Stealth Marketing but Astroturfing?
And this also leads to the question of whether C.A.N. is engaging in not only stealth marketing, but also what is known as astroturfing. Wikipedia defines astroturfing as: The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt (”outreach”, “awareness”, etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anything from an individual pushing one’s own personal agenda through to highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations.
One would think that C.A.N. should know about the ethics of marketing, when their director, Jeff Graunke, clearly stated on his LinkedIn page – which now apparently is no longer available, but here’s a screenshot of it: 
that clearly states he was a former Regional Sales Manager for Cochlear Americas.
This information is especially disturbing in light of the Federal Trade Commission’s statement, which was published by the Washington Post in 2006, about word of mouth marketing. In the first paragraph of the article, it states: The Federal Trade Commission yesterday said that companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships.
How can C.A.N. not know marketing ethics? How can Cochlear Americas and other cochlear implant companies not know this either? How can Melissa, considering her C.A.N. training and her magazine writing/editorial background, not have any problems with this?
In light of all of this information, which I never anticipated to just be several mouse clicks away, I feel quite comfortable in saying that DeafRead was fully justified in removing Cochlear Implant Online from their subscriptions. This appears to go far beyond Cochlear Implant Online and all the way up to Cochlear Americas itself. With each mouse click, I uncover more and more information like this. The connections, links and information seems to be never-ending, and I’ve worked on this for long enough. And I’m pretty sure people who are reading this will take it upon themselves to verify the information, and uncover more information. Who knows what we will find next? I am just left standing here, completely staggered…
Inside Cochlear Implant Online: Disclosure?
Where Is the Full Disclosure?
So, how can the information presented in the previous post be central to this controversy? I’ll tell you what it is: It is reasonable to expect that Melissa and Rachel understand about full disclosure – more so than the average person does. But until CIO’s boot from DeafRead, Melissa and Rachel never disclosed that C.A.N. was owned by Cochlear Americas, which is a for-profit company.
Then there’s the matter of whether Rachel herself benefits in any way from Cochlear Americas, aside from her cochlear implant. While there is no evidence to indicate that Rachel gets compensated for volunteering with C.A.N., it does appear that she indirectly benefits financially from Cochlear Americas itself.
Rachel won a Graeme Clark Scholarship in February 2007 as shown here, which is funded by Cochlear Americas. It is not known how much the scholarship covers her college tuition. While Rachel did disclose that she won this scholarship, she did not make it explicit to the readers that this scholarship was funded by Cochlear Americas.
With CIO, Rachel makes it extremely clear that CIO is solely a cochlear implant resource website. While she does shares about her two C.I. failures in the blog post “Am I Hiding? No…“, she mainly writes about how the CI company handled the failures and how they are researching to improve the product. Rachel then ends the post with this, “The fact is that failure rates for CIs overall are very low. For my brand, Cochlear, it’s about 1%, and there are many people with 15 to 20 – year old Nucleus 22s that are still going strong.“
Would an independent cochlear implant resource website post statistics like the aforementioned one Rachel did?
Then there’s the matter of how extensive are the training and compensation the C.A.N. advocates get and whether they were fully disclosed to the public.
Melissa writes on the CIO blog (comment #25) on June 3, 2008, about compensation: Cochlear volunteers have the option of collecting points which we can use towards Cochlear merchandise, such as batteries, earhooks, etc., but then we have to report this as volunteer income to the IRS. The other option is to simply be a volunteer and not get the points. While I have opted to get the points, Rachel has opted out of receiving points. Therefore, she gets absolutely no compensation from Cochlear for her volunteer work.
Robyn from The Ambling Rambler in the #12 comment, then provides more details: I am not paid for speaking at these events. Occasionally the event manager will give me a cheque as a thank you for speaking, which I in turn donate to The Pindrop Foundation to raise money for Cochlear Implants in New Zealand. They might give me a petrol voucher, and I will gladly use that.
Cochlear will pay any out of pocket expenses, for example, if a talk is a long way out of town, they will pay for a hotel room and a meal, and mileage to get there, but that is all. That covers expenses, but it is still in no way profiteering from it.
It is interesting to note that C.A.N. itself does not discuss compensation in the web pages accessible to the public. So the public does not necessarily know the extent of the compensation the advocates receive.
In the matter of the training the advocates receive from C.A.N., Melissa on June 3, 2008 stated on DeafRead’s Official Blog, regarding the job of the volunteer manager. She writes: The volunteers’ relationship to the manager consists of the following: We email our activities to the manager each month, and she sends out a newsletter periodically containing news such as positive stories from a recent bilateral CI recipient. Rarely is direct guidance contained in the newsletters. In fact, the only such guidance that I can specifically remember was telling us not to get into “brand wars” and telling us not to reply directly to medical questions but, instead, to refer these questions to the physicians. Our regional manager has never instructed us on what to post on blogs or listservs. That is not her function. [Emphasis added]
This appears to be incongruent with the statement made by Melissa on the CIO blog, comment #37 where she states: The only support I’ve gotten from Cochlear is online training in presenting accurate information, which also included strongly worded guidance that we were not to push brand choice. [Emphasis added]
However, both of those statements also appear to be incongruent with Rachel’s manager, Brandy Harvey’s job description. Rachel wrote about Brandy in her June 2, 2008 post, and linked to the article about Brandy. In the article, it explains about what Brandy does in her job. “Brandy joined Cochlear Americas as an Awareness Manager in October of 2006. Brandy recruits, develops & trains volunteers to spread awareness about treatment options for hearing loss and the Cochlear and Baha implants. [Emphasis added]
If what Melissa said is true about volunteers barely getting any guidance, then why did she receive online training and why is Brandy being paid to train volunteers? Then one has to consider C.A.N.’s statement about training in their FAQ on their website: “Cochlear values its Advocates and wants to make sure each has the skills they need. Cochlear regularly takes advocates to their head office in Sydney where a couple of days training takes place. Regular information is provided and soon training will be available to advocates in a members only section of this web-site.”
This, at the very least, appears to make Melissa’s statements appear very inconsistent and raises many questions.
Inside Cochlear Implant Online: Who Are They
On June 3, 2008 the DeafRead team announced that they were inactivating Rachel Chaikof’s blog, Cochlear Implant Online [CIO], from the DeafRead aggregator. Immediately since her debut on DeafRead on January 13, 2008, Rachel and her blog has been embroiled in controversy. Some DeafRead viewers felt her blog was merely a thinly veiled advertisement for cochlear implants.
Due to the intense controversy over Rachel’s blog and its subsequent removal from DeafRead, I decided to do some digging. Due to the amount of the information I have discovered, this will be broken up into three blog posts. All of the information I have discovered is on the Internet – mainly from Rachel’s blog itself. The information I am presenting will be undoubtedly controversial, and in all likelihood, I will be labeled anti-CI and possibly a stooge of DeafRead.
So allow me to state this: I believe that cochlear implants are a tool, and it is all about how people use that tool. In regards of DeafRead, while I am friends with some of the DeafRead editors, DeafRead business remains their business, and nobody dictates what I blog. All of those things I believe, do not in any shape or form diminish the facts that I am going to present here.
To understand the controversy a bit better, I believe that we need to look at the backgrounds of Melissa, Rachel, the history/purpose of CIO and the purpose of the Cochlear Awareness Network [C.A.N.] first. All of the information about their background is pertinent to the controversy itself and will become clear later on.
Who’s Who
Melissa is the mother of Rachel, the blogger of CIO. We do not know very much about Melissa herself, but we do know that Melissa is a volunteer for C.A.N., per her comment #25 here on June 3, 2008. Then I found this tidbit – Rachel writes on March 3, 2008, “So, at one point, I saw a cochlear implant organization magazine on the kitchen table and picked it up. my mom was a writer and an editor for the magazine. [Emphasis added]
Rachel is the blogger of CIO, and was one of the first at such a young age to receive a cochlear implant (a Nucleus brand). In high school At her university, she was is an editor of her school newspaper. Currently, she is majoring in Photography at a private arts university in Georgia, and aspires to be a photojournalist one day. Rachel is also the winner of the Graeme Clark scholarship (February 2007), and is a volunteer for C.A.N. as of December 2007.
History and Purpose of Cochlear Implant Online
The exact date of CIO’s inception is unknown but on June 2, 2008, Rachel states CIO has been around since 2001. Since Rachel was not of age in 2001, it is reasonable to assume that her mother, Melissa was involved in establishing CIO. However, the CIO archives do not go back to 2001, but only back to 2006. So it is extremely difficult to ascertain how active CIO was prior to 2006.
As for the purpose of CIO, Rachel writes, “This website is not the place for me talk about my personal life. This website is merely a cochlear implant resource.“
Purpose of Cochlear Awareness Network
Onwards to C.A.N., which is a major component of this controversy. What exactly is C.A.N.? They explain on their website’s FAQ: The Cochlear Awareness Network is a group of volunteers each of whom have lived deaf but have had their hearing returned through technology. They have chosen to be members of the Network to tell their stories, proqactively [sic] raising awareness for the wonderful changes in their lives.
Basically Advocates tell their own story. They do this by making presentations to community and interest groups or clubs or one-on-one to potential receipients. [sic] They may also seek publication of their personal story in local newspapers. They may also help out at trade shows and talk to people referred by their local Cochear [sic] Implant Clinic.
They continue on to explain the benefits of being a C.A.N. volunteer, or rather as they call it, advocate:
* Sharing your story helps others know there are solutions to many kinds of deafness
* Provides a resource for others
* Professionals hear your story and tell their patients
* Corrects wrong information in the market place
* Helps people make a decision about a Cochlear Implant or Baha procedure.
We Want To Be Controlled
It’s time for another The Deaf Edge rant. Now, this isn’t meant to sting or insult people. This is merely my feelings based on what I am observing. I already posted a very similar version of this on Tayler’s DeafRead official blog, but since that thread is winding down, I thought I would re-post and elaborate more on my own blog.
I do not understand why people are still upset over DeafRead’s upcoming changes. Tayler and DeafRead are going to release a version of DeafRead where you can customize the list of v/blogs that you can read/view. In essence, they are empowering us to be more selective in what we want to read and/or view.
Yet we have people saying, “No. This solution isn’t any good. I want the CI v/blogs gone, period. I don’t like them, therefore it shouldn’t exist for anyone and I want DeafRead to do all of the work for me.”
It seems to me that people want to be controlled, instead of being empowered to make decisions for themselves. They want to be told which blogs are good or bad, and what’s Deaf-centric and what’s not and so on. Why else would they want DeafRead to do all of the censoring instead of doing it themselves?
But then, I can kind of understand that. It’s a lot easier to live your life, if someone else’s making the decisions for you. And sadly enough, historically the Deaf Community has had others making the decisions for us. Our parents made all of the decisions for us. Our doctors. Our educators. Everyone, except for ourselves.
And so the self-repression and lack of self-empowerment marches on…
Note – I used repression as defined by www.m-w.com: a mental process by which distressing thoughts, memories, or impulses that may give rise to anxiety are excluded from consciousness and left to operate in the unconscious
Impersonation and Libel
It was brought to my attention that someone on Mike McConnell’s blog left a comment saying:
“The person who mentioned AGBell’s grandson is Brian Riley, so take everything he says with more than a grain of salt. He is also “Deep Ears” and writes stuff for Eggbert on agbellinfo.com”
Written By Deaf Pundit, the Deaf Edge
I have never said or written that quote in that comment. That accusation is false and I do not appreciate being cited for things that I have never said or written. I have emailed Mike McConnell to give me the ip address of that person so then I can consult with an attorney about whether to take legal action or not.
Coming of Age
After reading the blogs slamming DeafRead, I think I can say DeafRead has come of age. I do find it interesting that there are two factions who disagree with each other over everything except for one thing: there’s censorship, DeafRead is not neutral and the guidelines are not clear.
To me as a moderate, it shows me that for the most part, DeafRead is doing its job. Aside from some bugs and human errors, DeafRead is posting blogs and vlogs that neither factions are happy with. There’s talk about setting up another aggregator to suit the desires of those factions, which is fine with me. If people can pull that off, then great! I’ll register my blog with that aggregator too if my blog fits their criteria.
But in all honesty, I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to code one from scratch. Look at DeafPulse for instance. It’s buggy and spams v/blogs with pingbacks and I ended up blacklisting DeafPulse pingbacks from my blog.
Coding is very difficult. During my teenage years, I played a free online game that was all text. People who knew C and C++ would create those games and people from all over would play it. At its inception, like DeafRead, the users were small in numbers. It also was volunteer run. But as it grew, the more complaints there were.
There were conflicts amongst the players themselves and with the administration. So when those conflicts played out, there were quite a few who stood up and left, shouting that they would set up their own game and attract the rest of the players to their game.
Invariably, those games would fail because they didn’t know how to code well enough and often also were tyrannical toward their own players. So those complainers would come back to the game they originally left. They never stopped griping though and the administration was stupid to ignore all of the criticism leveled against them which came back to haunt them. Some of the criticism happened to be valid.
I for one though, don’t see the DeafRead team ignoring all of the criticism that’s aimed towards them. One criticism to me that I think is valid is the conflict of interest situation with the DeafRead Awards.
If DeafRead wants to present a professional and impartial image, the editors should be exempt from receiving the v/blog awards. The DeafRead team deserves its own special recognition, separate from the awards ceremony and hopefully that will happen sometime from us v/bloggers. There will always be a perceived bias if they are eligible for the awards, whether true or not. It’s a human nature thing.
So, if there is a v/blog award ceremony next year, I hope the DeafRead team does recuse themselves from being eligible for the awards. I don’t think it’s fair for the editors to recuse themselves right now for this year’s awards, because that would throw off everything. For things to be fair for this year’s, we would have to re-nominate and re-vote then be ready for this Saturday.
It’s impossible to please everyone and I definitely see DeafRead going through a growth spurt. Some things may not have caught up with this growth spurt and I hope DeafRead takes action to remedy those things in a timely manner. This is truly on an unprecedented level – so many v/blogs sharing their thoughts and ideas and there are more on the way. It is my sincere opinion that the Deaf Community is not used to the freedom of speech aspect. We’ve been ignored and oppressed for so long that this whole thing is so new to us.
Here’s to hoping that we come to age without too much pain. The world deserves to see our voices – all of them and thanks to DeafRead, more and more of us are being seen and heard.
Show Your Love for DR by Voting!
As most of you know, DeafRead is holding voting for the DeafRead awards on February 2, 2008. You can either click on the top of the DeafRead website, or go to DeafRead’s official blog to vote.
Remember, you need to check your email for the confirmation from DeafRead, or your vote won’t count!
Now for the self-promotion part! 
Since I was nominated for three categories, and there are a lot of newbies here on DeafRead now, feel free to check out my blog review of 2007 posts. It has been updated to show all of the December 2007 posts.
Enjoy.
EDIT: I realized I didn’t put in the url. Whoops. It’s now there.
